An Italian archaeologist and antiquities expert says a “substantial portion” of the looted items returned to Italy earlier this year from the United States are fakes. Gianfranco Adornato, a professor of Greek and Roman art and archeology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Pisa, says a high percentage of the 60 works, collectively valued at more than $20 million, are “made up of easily recognizable forgeries …these supposed works will hopefully never be exhibited in Italian museums.”
The 60 archaeological objects believed to have been looted from sites in Italy, including a fresco taken from Herculaneum and bronze busts, were repatriated in January with great fanfare. Some items were purchased by billionaire collector Michael Steinhardt, while more than 20 items were also in the collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, including a marble head of Athena, dating from 200 BC.
The items, handed over by American officials to their Italian colleagues in New York last September, were repatriated thanks to an international trafficking investigation led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Carabinieri Cultural Heritage Unit, the Italian National Police.
A Greek cup, believed to have been created in the 6th century BC, depicts two sphinxes in the wrong pose. Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (TPC)
“This unit was particularly effective; remarkable objects and monuments, part of Italian cultural heritage, have been recovered in major international museums, notably in the United States,” writes Adornato in our partner newspaper, The Giornale dell’Arte.
Most of the works were exhibited at the Rome Museum Saved Art Museum (Museo dell’Arte Salvata) which opened last year in a space in the ancient Baths of Diocletian. Adornato says, however, that several objects could be fakes, including an amphora from the Greek Nicosthenic workshop (530 BC-500 BC) and a “carnation” with a mask of Dionysus on the center (500 BC).
“It may be noted that the peephole has a strange pattern of eyes; it is devoid of lacrimal wattles, characteristic of this typology. Even the Dionysian mask (featured) is simplified with superficial and imprecise engravings. Another Attic band cup, decorated with sphinxes on its sides, dating from the second half of the 6th century BC, presents the two monsters in a completely wrong pose, never seen in Greek art,” explains Adornato.
He also distinguishes a dinosaurs-a Greek mixing bowl-featuring a series of horsemen. “Although it mimics metal prototypes, this vase features a particularly chunky support not found in other comparable vases. Furthermore, from a technical point of view, the forger exaggerates the horse’s mane, neck and ribs: the caparison (fabric covering) on the horse’s back is never represented in ancient art. Italian authorities have not revealed the collections housing these objects in the United States.
Adornato tells The arts journal: “I suspect other counterfeits among the objects; not only the pottery, easily recognizable thanks to the iconography, but also certain sculptures do not seem authentic. You should look at them more closely because the surfaces have been smoothed by acids and the encrustations appear artificial. The Carabinieri cultural heritage unit did not respond to a request for comment.
