In the specialist literature, they go by other names: 'reconstitutions' or 'reconstructions'. The aim here is no longer simply to reproduce the 'surface' of the painting, but to take an interest in what the eye cannot see: its thickness, the various materials of which it is composed, the stages followed by the painter, his know-how. This means taking an interest in how the stretchers were set up, the canvases used, how they were glued, the choice of preparatory layers, the imprimatur, the drawing, the binders and pigments, and so on. In general, these 'recreations' are produced for educational and scientific purposes: they are useful for curators, restorers, researchers and specialists in materials analysis.

Recreations require a great deal of upstream research, an investigation into the painters' skills that combines material data (the paintings that remain), historical and contextual data (archival and textual sources) and the results of analyses of the materials.

The aim is to get closer to the conception of the original paintings, to their spirit, without really being able to satisfy this quest for authenticity.