1. Context

Many objets d'art have been high-tech objects, particularly in the Fire Arts (metal objects, ceramics, glass and enamels...). The great masters, artists and/or craftsmen, have always sought to develop exceptional technical mastery to produce works surpassing those of their peers. At best, these "secrets" were only passed on from master to disciple. As a result, part of the training involved copying, or rather replicating, works considered to be models. This "replica" approach has been practiced in China for thousands of years. It is closely linked to the appearance of recipe books. In the West, technical literature was long confined to Greek (Herodotus, Theophrastus) and Roman (Dioscorides, Pliny, Strabo) texts