Recent searches
Search options
Much talk of #museums, #archaeology, #looting of antiquities this week
Protip: follow @Drdonnayates & @elginism for news + expert analysis
This story is different:
In May 2023, the #Greek Ministry of Culture rejoiced at the return of ancient objects, including a sculpture of Alexander the Great. One catch: Is it real?
https://www.dw.com/en/restituted-sculpture-of-alexander-the-great-a-forgery/a-66599759
Fine documentary on investigation by Stephan Lehmann et al. into forged ancient bronze heads
@CitizenWald @Drdonnayates @elginism When I was teaching at Yale nearly 30 years ago, the curator of ancient art at the Yale University Art Gallery kept on her desk a marble head of Pompey that had been purchased in Rome shortly after World War II as an authentic antiquity, but subsequent examinations in the decades that followed proved it to be a modern forgery. The Pompey head did subsequently appear in a museum exhibit in Kansas City, an exhibit on art forgeries.
@michaelmeckler @Drdonnayates @elginism@archeo.social
Great example! What is so fascinating about these bronze heads is that they are all similar, apparently the project of a common workshop, a massive undertaking
@michaelmeckler @CitizenWald @Drdonnayates another example of why provenance is so important - it is so likely that something could be fake or illegally excavated without it.
@elginism
@CitizenWald @Drdonnayates As I recall, the purported story behind the Pompey head was that an Italian aristocrat impoverished because of the war secretly assigned it to an antiquities dealer. The story was, of course, fake, but right after World War II there were plenty of well-heeled Americans (and American institutions) believing they could scoop up antiquities and masterworks from the ruins of Europe. And that environment is ideal for art forgers.
@michaelmeckler @CitizenWald @Drdonnayates these stories always sound sort of plausible - maybe some of them are - but there are likely just as many that are not at the end of the day.
@CitizenWald @Drdonnayates thanks for the endorsement.