antiquities and ethnographica

This page considers forgery relating to antiquities and ethnographica.

It covers -

• introduction
• studies
• incidents
• other

     introduction

Forgery has been intimately associated with the discovery, marketing and critical reception of antiquities since at least the Han dynasty in China and late Republican Rome.

The provenance of works is often unclear, demand for works may be high but (without the forger's help not readily satisfied), markets may be driven by notions of connoissieurship (often antithetical to "grubbing after facts" and forensic analysis) and assessments of authenticity reflect changing conventions in collecting, modes of art criticism and prevailing consumer tastes.

Forgery of ceramics, sculptures, paintings, textiles and other artifacts has accordingly encompassed

• production of a new work that is then passed off as being of a particular period
• piecing together of authentic fragments to simulate antiquity or
• 'improvement' of existing works.

High profile exposures include the Louvre's Tiara of Saitapharnes (supposedly 3rd Century BC Scythian but probably Russian from the turn of last century), the Getty Kouros, Etruscan terracottas in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Vinland Map at Harvard.

Oscar Muscarella's The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures (Groningen: Styx 2000) suggests that forgery - or merely improper attribution - of archaeological objects is common. He notes around 40% of archaeological objects tested by the Oxford Thermoluminescence Laboratory prove to be fakes. It is claimed that half the antiquities brought for sale at Sotheby’s in a year are fake and that around 25,000 forged antiquities enter the market each year. Supposedly around 80% of 'ancient' terracottas smuggled from Mali since the 1980s have been fakes. As with the trade in old master paintings, drawings, prints and other objects the 'discovery' and distribution of forged antiquities is an integral part of the archaeological economy.

Some estimates suggest that around 60% of antiquities from China are of contemporary manufacture. William Alford's To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilisation (Stanford: Stanford Uni Press 1995) illustrates arguments in some cultures that emulation is as important as originality.

     studies

An introduction to the manufacture and enthronement of antiquities is provided by Thomas Hoving's breezy False Impressions – The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes (New York: Simon & Schuster 1996) and King of the Confessors (New York: Simon & Schuster 1981). There is a more scholarly treatment in Discovery & Deceit: archaeology & the forger's craft (Kansas: Nelson-Atkins Museum 1996) by Robert Cohon

Hoving's activities as a curator/entrepreneur are criticised in John McPhee's acute A Roomful of Hovings (New York: Noonday Press 1985) and Muscarella's The Lie Became Great. Karl Meyer's The Plundered Past and Frank Arnau's The Art of The Faker ­ 3,000 Years of Deception (Boston: Little Brown 1959) are dated but still of value, as is Why Fakes Matter: Essays on problems of authenticity (London: British Museum Press 1992) edited by Mark Jones.

For particular genres see Bernard Ashmole's more restrained Forgeries of Ancient Sculpture in Marble: Creation & Detection (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1961), supplemented by Unmasking the Forger: The Dossena Deception (London: Collins 1987) by David Sox and An Inquiry into the Forgery of the Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: 1961) by Dietrich von Bothmer & Joseph Nobele. An introduction to dodgy numismatics is provided by Classical Deception: Counterfeits, Forgeries and Reproductions of Ancient Coins (New York: Kraus 2001) by Wayne Sayles. For Pre-Columbian forgery see in particular Falsifications and misreconstructions of pre-Columbian art : a conference at Dumbarton Oaks, October 14th and 15th, 1978 (Cambridge: Dumbarton Oaks/Harvard Uni Press 1982).

     incidents

Exposures and controversies include -

forged terracotta statues of Etruscan warriors acquired by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1915 and 1921. In 1960 it was recognised that the glaze contained manganese. Alfredo Fioravanti, one of the forgers, was still be alive and demonstrated his involvement by producing the thumb that was missing from one figure

the Louvre claimed the headband of Saitaphernes as a masterpiece of Scythian metalwork but subsequently withdrew the item from exhibition after independent scholars suggested that dated from a Russian workshop in the late Art Nouveau period

versatile Italian sculptor Alceo Dossena (1878-1937) gained attention after blowing the whistle on dealers who were marketing his carvings as work from antiquity or the early Renaissance. He's now considered to be responsible for the sculptured tomb previously attributed to Mino da Fiesole

the 'Minoan' statuette known as the Fitzwilliam Goddess acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 1926, exposed in 1990s

a classical Greek Kouros expensively acquired by the Getty Museum in the US is now considered by some to be a contemporary work

claims that Brigido Lara created over 3,500 'Pre-Columbian' antiquities

the Metropolitan Museum of Art faces controversy after acquisition in 1997 of a collection of Chinese paintings, notably Riverbank (claimed by some to have been created by contemporary master Chang Ta-Chien rather than 1,100 years ago) and suggestions by Oscar White Muscarella that the Cycladic Harp Player is a forgery

announcement by the Freer Gallery of Art that it had reclassified works including a Northern Qi dynasty (550–577) stele, a gilt image of a standing Buddha and ivory statue of Guanyin in the guise of Buddha with a sacred jewel ( re-dated to the Ming to Qing dynasty after assessment that an inscription of 1025 was spurious)

claims that a statuette of pharoah Sesostris III acquired by French industrialist Francois Arnault in 1998 was a contemporary forgery, as the ancient Egyptians did not use diamond drills

US academic John Moffitt has suggested in The Lady of Elche (Miami: University Presses of Florida 1995) that Spain's Lady of Elche sculpture dates from 1896 rather than 500 BC.

     other

For the Vinland Map see The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation (New Haven: Yale Uni Press 1995) by R.A. Skelton, Thomas Marston & George Painter, the 1998 Vinland Reread review by Paul Saenger and the revisionist account Maps, Myths, and Men: The Story of the Vinland Map by Kirsten Seaver.

Scientific forgeries include the Piltdown Man, allegedly involving noosphere guru Teilhard de Chardin, for which see Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery (New York: Oxford Uni Press 1990) by Frank Spencer.

A perspective is provided by Shelly Errington's The Death of Authentic Primitive Art & Other Tales of Progress (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 1998) questioning some aspects of authenticity and primitivism.




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