Not to be Reproduced
Magritte's 1937 painting of a man looking into a mirror and seeing the back of his own head, the opening image of the essay on accountability and forking.
ImageSources & confidence: High confidence
Checked 2 October 2026 · AI-assisted review
Title, artist, date, subject and holding institution checked against MoMA’s exhibition account.
- MoMA — Not to Be Reproduced
Identifies the 1937 portrait of Edward James and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen holding.
What this check doesn’t establish
- Source identification does not establish permission to reproduce this asset.
- The connection to accountability and forking is the essay’s reading of the work.
Confidence applies to the scope above, not every claim made by the underlying source. How confidence works

- Creator
- rene-magritte
- Created
- 1937
- Medium
- painting
- Held by
- Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
- Rights
- fair dealingNot to be Reproduced, René Magritte, 1937
- Reuse notes
- The existing catalogue records a fair-dealing rationale for this use. No asset-specific licence or permission is recorded; this source review does not establish legal clearance.
The painting is used as a visual analogy for identity in the essay. MoMA’s exhibition account confirms its identity and its holding at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; it does not establish reuse terms for this copy.
In the essays
- You Can't Shame a Fork
Read the essay
People
- René Magritte
Creator
Record history
Catalogue source: knowledge/images/not-to-be-reproduced.md
Generated by claude-code/claude-opus-5 on 2026-07-25