Authenticity and Cycladic figures

I understand that in February there will be a closed conference to explore the Stern collection of Cycladicising objects currently on loan to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the key issues that needs to be explored relates to the authenticity of the figures. Are some of them modern creations? Are some recreated from genuine figures? Are some the work of well-known forgers of Cycladic figures? Will it be possible to identify the works of forgers in other collections, perhaps including the Met?

Will delegates of the conference restate the importance of archaeological context in determining authenticity? Or will there be an exploration of "the land of parallel" where similar figures may not have secure contexts?

What will be the lasting academic contribution of this conference to the Early Cycladic period?

For further reading:

Tsirogiannis, C., D. W. J. Gill, and C. Chippindale. 2022. "The Forger’s Tale: An insider’s account of corrupting the corpus of Cycladic figures." International Journal of Cultural Property 29: 369–85. [Online]

Tsirogiannis, C., D. W. J. Gill, and C. Chippindale. 2025. "A Corrupt Cycladic Corpus of Marble Figures." Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies 13: 203–33. [Online]

| |

The Getty kouros: a modern creation?

The refurbished galleries of the J. Paul Getty Museum no longer include the Getty kouros, a sculpture purchased in 1985 (Christopher Knight, "Something's missing from the newly reinstalled antiquities collection at the Getty Villa", LA Times April 19, 2018). Knight explains:

Unexpectedly, the Getty kouros, a controversial sculpture even before the museum acquired it more than 30 years ago, has been removed from public view. The work is now in museum storage.  

For decades, the life-size carving of a standing nude youth carried one of the most distinctive labels of any work of art in an American museum: “Greece (?) about 530 B.C. or modern forgery.” The label encapsulated puzzling issues about the work, whose questionable status as dating from the archaic dawn of Western civilization had been the focus of scholarly and scientific research, debate and international symposiums for years.

It is ten years since I provided an overview of the kouros here on LM. And over 20 years since Christopher Chippindale wrote a key review of the sculpture for the American Journal of Archaeology [JSTOR]. Perhaps the key lesson from this acquisition is that the lack of a rigorous due diligence policy by the Getty allowed this sculpture to enter or hover around the corpus of archaic sculpture.

Knight continues:

According to the museum’s director, Timothy Potts, the kouros has not been downgraded to the status of a forgery or definitively determined to be a fake. The distinctive labeling, also appended to the sculpture on the museum’s collection website, still stands. 

Potts said only that the consensus of art historical study, once divided, now leans against its authenticity.

Potts has had direct experience of dealing with possible modern sculptures that have entered museum collections. It would be interesting for him to explain how he apparently came to acquire a "Sumerian" statue for the Kimbell Art Museum for a reported $2.7 million. (For details see my comments here.)

Aydin Dikmen and the forging of antiquities

Suzan Mazur has published a timely piece on Aydin Dikmen ("Anatolian Stargazer Fakes?—The Aydin Dikmen Connection", Huffington Post September 22, 2017). She raises the spectre that some of the more complete Anatolian "Stargazer" figures could be modern creations. 

Mazur notes the presence of such figures in the hands of Aydin Dikmen who was separately reported as having made the "best fakes" (though not specifically of Anatolian figures). Dikmen's basement in Konya was also reported to have been equipped to make objects from marble.

There are clear intellectual consequences if the insecure "Stargazers" are allowed to join the corpus of Anatolian figures that have been recovered from scientific excavations.

Owners of "Stargazers" that surfaced on the market since 1960 need to check their full histories.

It needs to be stressed that some of these "Stargazers" could indeed be ancient, but the absence of contextual information will make it difficult for their date to be authenticated.

Intellectual Consequences of Forgeries

I attended the Second AHRC Workshop | Art, Crime and Criminals: Painting Fresh Pictures of Art Theft, Fraud and Plunder at RUSI in London yesterday. I was very struck that some of the issues that I have explored with Christopher Chippindale in our work on Cycladic sculptures were emerging for other works of art and from so many different cultures. Undetected forgeries corrupt the corpus of knowledge and undermine the genuine pieces.

Some of the lessons derived from the conference should be that academics need to be more cautious about providing attributions and opinions as these can be used to authenticate the forgeries. Secondly, the due diligence needs to be far more rigorous.

I will be revisiting Cycladic figures in February as part of a presentation in Cambridge and I expect modern creations will feature in the discussion.

Craig Evans and the Ossuaries

There are ongoing discussions about the surfacing of new papyri on the market. I have posted my review of Craig A. Evans, Jesus and the Ossuaries (2003) on academia.edu as it touches on related points.

Art Forgery and Provenance

I attended the ARCA (Association for Research into Crimes against Art) Art Crime Symposium at the V&A in London today. There were two sessions:

• a. Art Recovery and Reward: Det Sgt Claire Hutcheon (Metropolitan Police), Charlie Hill, Richard Ellis, Jonathan Jones.
• b. Art Forgery and Provenance: Vernon Rapley, Christopher Marsden, Christos Tsirogiannis, Noah Charney.

I tweeted some of the themes here.

I was very struck by Jonathan Jones' point that art can be displayed in its original context (e.g. a church) rather than the sanitised environment of a museum. (It reminded me of the Houghton Hall exhibition --- and interestingly Peter Watson alluded to the exhibition during the discussion.)

During the discussion, Richard Ellis reminded us that due diligence meant that we needed to ensure that we left no stone unturned as we researched past collecting histories.

Vernon Rapley kept coming back to the Amarna Princess as well as other pieces from the same forger. He reminded us of little clues that would send curators down carefully laid false trails. Christopher Marsden (Senior Archivist at the V&A) reminded us of the forging of documentation to support "provenance".

Christos Tsirogiannis (U Cambridge) discussed a range of forged paperwork and collecting histories drawing on examples from the Medici Dossier, as well as the Sarpedon krater that had been acquired by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. He explored the background to the Getty kouros.

The Iranian silver griffin

Suzan Mazur has added some further information about the silver griffin returned to Iran ("ICE "Incompetence" In Iranian Griffin Debacle", scoop.nz October 15, 2013). She also quotes from an email by Peter Northover relating to the analysis of the griffin. [Northover also analysed the Cleveland Apollo.]

Oscar Muscarella responds and suggests that Northover's report "hangs in the air" and has "no scientific value".

Fakes in China

The Guardian is reporting that the Jibaozhai Museum in China has a staggering  40000 fakes in its collection. indeed it's entire collection may be modern creations. This again is a reminder of the importance of obtaining objects with securely and documented collecting histories that preferably come from known archaeological contexts.

More interesting is the question about who created the forgeries? How were they acquired? Who authenticated them? who decided that they were worthy of display?

And has the Forger created material for other public and private collections?

The "dodgy" papyrus fragment: top question

Professor Karen King has been defending the so-called "dodgy" papyrus (PDodg.) in an interview for the Huffington Post (Daniel Burke and David Gibson, "'Jesus Wife': 5 Big Questions About The Discovery", September 20, 2012). Number 1 is "Where did the papyrus come from?"

Looting Matters has been asking much the same thing. So King replies:

We don't know. King says that "nothing is known about the circumstances of its discovery," an admission that has raised red flags for other scholars.

... The papyrus now belongs to an anonymous collector who asked King to analyze it. King says three scholars have determined that the fragment is not a forgery, but that further tests will be conducted on the ink. The scholar also says that she will press the fragment's anonymous owner to come forward.

One gets the feeling that King has been surprised by the media interest and the negative impact of the story. The present proprietor is probably wishing that there had not been such a high profile spread in the New York Times.

The intellectual consequences of forgeries

London's Victoria and Albert Museum has been hosting a short-lived exhibition of Fakes and Forgeries. The show has been mounted with the collaboration of the Art and Antiques Squad of the Metropolitan Police. One of the pieces on display was the Amarna princess --- created by Shaun Greenhalgh --- that was sold to the Bolton Museum with the support of the National Arts Collection Fund. The statue was even supplied with a false collecting history, namely that it had once resided in the Silverton Park collection. Greenhalgh was also responsible for the creation of the Roman Risley Park lanx.

The creation of forgeries and their admission to the corpus of knowledge can have serious intellectual consequences. This is the case for some Cycladic marble figures that were attributed to the hand of a supposed third millennium BC sculptor ('The Stafford Master') only to find that they were modern creations. Doubts about the antiquity of the 'artisan' had been raised when it was realised that the statues attributed to 'him' had not come from any known archaeological contexts.

The Bolton Museum case finds a parallel in the acquisition of the 'Getty kouros'. This sculpture, like the 'Amarna princess' was 'falsely historied' placing its initial acquisition around 1930.

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas also appeared to acquire what appeared to be a possible modern creation in 2000. It was reported that the 'Sumerian' statue had been purchased from a New York antiquities dealer --- Phoenix Solo --- for $2.7 million (Gabriella Coslovich, "Former state art gallery chief buys into another controversy", The Age (Melbourne) August 21, 2001; see also Russell Berman, "Antiquities Dealers Suddenly Emerge Into Sunlight", The New York Sun April 14, 2006). The statue was apparently returned to the dealer for a refund ("Museum wants refund for $2.7 million statue", AP August 17, 2001; see also Adam McGill, "The Kimbell and its critics", D - Dallas / Fort Worth February 1, 2002).

Forgeries have corrupted collections for centuries. So how can museums and collectors avoid them? One strategy is to insist that the object has a documented collecting history that can be verified. Such a 'provenance' (see earlier discussion of the term) needs to be the subject of a rigorous due diligence search. And such a search will, at the same time, protect the museum or private collector from acquiring a genuine ancient piece that had been looted in recent years.

Scholarship cannot ignore forgeries.