Fakes in the art world - The mystery conman | DW Documentary

69 69 Well, John's husband is that auction houses generally only care about what's sold over the counter. What makes money. Animals. five million dollars these bronze heads are from auction houses galleries and art dealers they all have one thing in common archaeologist Stefan Lehmann believes they are forgeries the work of a mysterious super forger known in German art circles as the Spanish master no one knows who he is is but Lehman is on his trail patron maestros nota nom the spanish maestro is a makeshift name no one knows exactly what it's supposed to mean or where it came from I've heard the expression used in the art trade in general I recently met an archaeologist who claimed to have coined the expression because he knows a forger from Spain when I asked his name he said oh I can't think of it right now Lehman describes these portraits of ancient rulers to the forger Augustus Caesar Alexander the Great all the sculptures have a common attribute an expression emotional facial that is actually not typical of classical antiquity always These are always bronze heads that are in particularly high demand among art collectors.

This was put up for auction at Barnum's. This is one of the heads that was offered in New York by Robin Symes at the December auction. This is a gem. This was conventionally acquired on the counter in his New York antiques store if you take Aladdin of all born this was put up for auction in Munich this has been sold several times already has quite a history today is in the possession of a foundation in Geneva in a museum as far as i know this one is in geneva - lemon is a professor at martin luther and haller university from his office the berlin born expert researches the art market and finds so many heads he considers dubious he has to shake his own load is still on sale about ely 250 AD price to order of course top i na'far his claw how closely price starts at about a million my name won co As an art dealer for 40 years Christophe Leon sold many important pieces of ancient art to international museums he made an unusual decision for an art dealer wants to talk about his observations in the ancient art trade shows us the catalog of an international auction house that sold a collection this in the past just some genuine pieces let's go through and quick this one is so fake it stinks look it's so blurry a sculptor in ancient times would never have made it you can forget it depends if you kiss some kind of ancient sculpture some once he looked like this with these eyes, these big bug eyes, this one is ridiculous, you can say it too close the hair always gives away the game the vases are fine we won't waste our time with them this is so fake it stinks this is impossible everything is rubbish this one here - none of them are antiques here's another one with a male member sticking out through the fabric that was never made in the antique this is this antique Azizah is always to hide a mouse button it's just a list oh everything was sold the few genuine works and all the

fakes

$47,000 eighty -three thousand and fifty nine thousand that's a lot of money and from home hey a Kadima gets ahead everyone shuts up and says nothing no one goes and says watch out buddy what you got here is a mess you wasted your money Leon says up to 50% of all antiques sold at auction are

fakes

.

He is an incredible figure at the top of Manhattan. Experienced American archaeologist Oscar Muscarella Blanca watches the art trade. He worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a curator for many years and is a recognized expert. good archeology conscience because he doesn't mince words you could say he's some kind of whistleblower why one of my mentors here Sherlock Holmes I've learned that both deals are flexible son thinks the watch house is because they're forgeries I once spoke with a deal on this and he smiled and what they are doing you see instead of selling it to a customer of their own store they don't want to save it we don't want his soul out of interest and many merchants no one doesn't want to sell avoid it they put it up for auction with a false name or they will say of an old collection ministers the origin of an old family collection or of an old collection or of mr.

X and these are dealers who were selling the counterfeit and auction and were not personally involved in who buys it. You see in the United States because it has so many museums, it is a main objective, but the sale of fakes is. New York may seem far away, but international trade. This bronze bust of Alexander the Great was presented in the Vinkor Man Museum in Stendhal in Saxony-Anhalt in the year 2000. It later became known that the bust had belonged to the art of London dealer Robin Symes Stefan Lehmann attributes the bus to the Spanish master whose style recognizes in it the special look of the edges where it was supposedly broken in antiquity and the evenly spread patina the face completely preserved as if by magic Lehman made the news public That the museum was exhibiting the bust without clear details of its origin is what every young man was going through.

I was there and I looked at it and for me I was screaming that it was a fake. I was quite in awe, so I bought the catalog and found it even less convincing. I mean there are a lot of fakes out there and even the best of us can fall for a fake that's completely better on Keisel silly there's nothing. more to say, I published a lecture I gave here in Hara in the form of a museum pamphlet and expressed my own opinion that, in my opinion, it is beyond doubt that the piece in question is from the ancient

world

an organ or an antique. it's dusk and tom unti cables ancient bronze bust of alexander the great or a well done fake by international mafia ten years ago this sculpture was considered a sensation exhibited at vinkle minh museum supposedly on loan from a private collector but accusations that it is a Counterfeiting goes back a long way, but not before time.

I still hold the same opinion as stated in an academic publication that we are dealing with forgery or the Winkelman society, however accused h I am guilty of libel and sued Was it simply an academic dispute or an archaeological scandal to avoid a lengthy trial? A mediator was hired, but in the meantime, the supposed bronze sensation has been missing since exhibition 10 years ago. legal path in Sumy that was a new way out I must say and in a way it is a form of violence your approach to this Avista pensive goodbye a disgusting specter true vital there was also the intention the plaintiff's lawyer told me that the objective was to remove me from my Ultimately, the trial ended in the Berlin Regional Court with a settlement the details of which both parties agreed to keep secret, but instead of closing the Lehman lawsuit, the trial encouraged him to carry out further investigations.

Fakes are unpopular. subject in archaeological circles Lehman is one of the few archaeologists to address it publicly and word has gotten out today that he is looking at a new case of a Swiss collector who wishes to remain anonymous bought a bronze head in New York but then he began to have doubts about whether it was genuine usually Lehman looks for bronze heads at art fairs and in museum galleries and auction catalogs now for the first time a possible work by the Spanish master is on his own desk there is a portrait of César Augustus is a lucky break for Lehman and his colleague Henry Clue who is also an archaeologist the Swiss collector says Lehman could have sold the head and now risks losing a good million euros impressive piece if the head turns out to be a forgery it will immediately useless these phones therefore hold up without a doubt it is very impressive you look at it and the first thing you say is that it is a wonderful head it is also spectacular because there are very few august bronze heads which also increases in value the prices of ancient works of art have risen rapidly in recent years many people are looking for a safe investment in works of art Stephan Lehmann belie you see that the stock markets and the antiques trade are linked it's actually all iron razor of mons is the likely outcome of course it's something that can be easily explained with the new age after 1989 when there was a whole new market of billionaires, oil billionaires, stores in this great idea between subways got the other key and harmful campaigns the stock markets went crazy people learned money fast and now there are many people with almost inconceivable amounts of money and one of the investments recommended by banks is antiques paintings and old works art what do you belong to Tiki don't classify us from Iceland the ma Estro Spaniard and his circle tried to help by satisfying the market demand with the fake Simba Dolph Sabbath reading that explains why they make four trees are seen and by jeewa they are sold all over the place huh and because they have their dead there is a market because the museums and collectors buy it we are talking about money money money is the underlying factor and the reason this is done because only rich people have the money to pay for it and these rich people get even more profit by donating it by taking a tax deduction she doesn't get prestige and this goes on and on as we sit here.

It exists at this very moment, so the antiques trade is obviously a wash with fakes according to Oskar Muscarella. to the fakes there is a lot of looted art in the Harrogate market from Marco, who runs one of the sections of the Pergamon museum in Berlin, has bought his staff from writing expert opinions on antiquities for the art trade we are going to get doctor ions RTD indigent is on the one hand you have those who say that we have to document works exported illegally or the academy so that knowledge is not lost designed instead you have those who say that my writing expert thinks ions you raise the value of a work of art and you make it even more profitable and that is also my personal opinion who does this let's go through the position of all of us I decided that we could not and should not write more evaluations because the experts are the ones who evaluate an article and give it its value with their evaluation often through the team Christophe Leon was an art dealer for many years and has a PhD in archeology we met him on his way to France a museum there allegedly exhibits several heads of dubious provenance, including some works attributable to the Spanish master Leon has known archaeologists Stephan Lehmann de Haller for many years whenever suspicious-looking works from antiquity appear they exchange opinions and information Leon says that the market for fakes has been booming for several years now as an art dealer personally experienced the developments in the art market for 40 years ah wish i was crazy at home i spent four years at Baron University until il 1970 and a Borowski, one of the largest antiquities dealers at the time, asked me to join him in Basel.

We worked together for a year and a half and then I started my own business. I've been an art dealer ever since, but I never really left academia. My peers have passed through mine over the years. I have always tried to stay within certain rules of the game. I'm not a saint, but I put limits on myself from the beginning because I come from a different side. I come from the academy. Meanwhile, in Halle, Stephen Lehmann continues to examine the bronze head from the New York art market. His research has also exposed market strategies. adopted by the presumed forger socorristas de Isis the forgery workshop run by spanish masters naturally thinks about the images that the route counted in the ranking of archaeological objects can produce for the market the bronze sculptures are number one there is something Something very special and we can expect them to draw a lot of attention here is a grumpy expression instead of the ideal we envisioned for Augustus you can tell the artist is playing with emotions a bit but it's a fantastic piece the fish Stephane Lehmann also heads the Archaeological Museum belonging to the University de Halle its stores contain a collection of plaster casts of original works of art from classical antiquity that correspond exactly to genuine antique portraits whenever Lemmon examines a suspected forgery he always compares it to an original as in the case of this portrait of Augustus Caesar Archaeologists call this method stylistic analysis is a centuries old approach used to identify genuine works of art simply by looking at them it takes years of experience a great deal of knowledge and intuition is in each other you can see here how an official portrait of Augustus looks like these eyes are not high arched, they only have a slight curve and there is the long nose in the mouth which is oriented towards the vertical axis then this calm facial expression this very calm expression with slightly raised contours only very light modeling conveying a very calm timeless facevision loss it's East Formica and then we have a jagged edge on the bottom it's almost not man but supposedly it was torn off with great force you get tired when you look at the details you have doubts if it really is a fake Cobalts 5 your bouzouki file shows this is perfect come on it's perfectly masterfully done so to speak my fancy Stefan Lehmann really thinks the head is fake but to make sure his verdict is correct he has to have the head re-examined by scientific means the Fraunhofer Institute standing specializes in testing materials normally scientists here test industrial products and research prototypes an alleged forgery by the Spanish master it's the first time for them difficult art evaluator Marat wants to scan the bronze head it's the first time anyone has tried to analyze a suspicious sculpture head in this way, we have already made a number of p tests and for completeness we would like a CT scan of the inside of the head, what exactly do you expect to see with the CT scan? scan can detect casting defects repair marks and what I'm really looking for are holes left by spacers use English Mona is hoping to see inside the head in the material it's made from to discover the method used to produce it I think that's ok they look good and stable good Gladys is ready for her CT scan now Miller and the physicists at the Fraunhofer Institute are ready to examine the head Mira is a materials scientist and evaluates works of art made of metal, porcelain or fabrics, this time it is supposedly bronze from ancient times the first of the images appears on kevin's screen which is even brighter there you go your spacer looks pretty funny that's good too but there seems to be a serious problem this is very strong radiation we can hardly recognize no sharp material structure you get the feeling that there are definitely some cavities in the material but you can't To define precisely how deep they are we simply did not have strong enough radiation energy to penetrate this head properly so that all of Gustus would have to re-examine his head in Halle.

Stefan Lehmann has news that an academic colleague has brought to his attention a series of suspicious bronze sculptures in France. in advance regarding the heads in the Museum of South France in Mahjong a private museum belonging to an Englishman who made a lot of money loved the art he collected and then built a Museum of antiquity in the south of France and suddenly, and this really surprised me several bronze heads from ancient Rome appeared here one of them has long hair which is very suspicious then there is this head with short hair which I was unaware of yes it is very strange then called stiff and then we have a head that is certainly supposed to have been part of a bust or statue, as can be seen from the broken edge, the person is wearing a full beard and a striking moustache.

I'm slark so all at once. we have one known plus two three four five of these life size or slightly larger than life size heads made of bronze that are obviously supposed to come from statues here in normal that's what's coming as Christophe Leon has arrived in the In the south of France, he himself wants to take a look at the Museum. Stephane Lehmann told him that, in his opinion, what some of his counterparts in the art trade do is up to them, but when supposed works of antiquity are considered highly suspicious by academics it makes its way into museums that it goes too far yes I love it this was human this is a giant ending you can already identify the problem areas of the museum on the internet because the exhibits are so well represented well photographed well presented but there is a gilding. the rule in archeology is the key is forensic science, in other words you have to examine things yourself and then when you have looked at a piece and determined that it is genuine you have to be honest enough to admit that you got it right. start coming we have to start fighting to keep museums free of forgeries museums are standard works imagine if art history was suddenly studied on the basis of forgeries he is looking at the heads in the museum he wants to make a decision before he gives to know your evaluation so finish but this is completely wrong to mark these strands of hair as snakes no it is quite possible that this is a forgery of the Spanish master I defio I examined it finally with that in mind then it could be convinced, but as I said, one of the characteristics of the Spanish master is that he tries to create ancient heads, but he never succeeds Annan and Invictus x90 alternately, these heads represent a different view Geist a different spirit, you can see it, a head was never portrayed of hair like this and antiquity did not happen, this head is strange, I do not trust, it is not an ancient style to portray someone like this, it does not exist such a thing with an old fashioned face roll your eyes keep this nice tie 90 because because it's the whole thing if they didn't open Oh he's going to go to town and ultimately got sold on things he had already adorned the warehouse of various antique dealers for years and then stuff like that came up that's definitely false a head like that is not from antiquity i have my doubts about this too and things come along and you can take them and you want to have them but that's obviously what happens when you put together a great collection under pressure and there are a lot of objects here the museum is full if you get kicked off on this jag your bet you fired me wasnt like i said all museums have wrong buys in their basements lots of this museum too but they should classify them and exhibit only the true applause of his Sigma Stefan Lehmann is writing a book about the works of art that he attributes to the Spanish master has photographs of 32 sculptures bronze on his desk he says the oldest items date from the 1970s the first of our state vows Martha Abbott under the Spanish masters workshop divides the work I guess but I could be wrong there could be more but I suspect there is one or two people thinking what are we going to do next this here is an exceptional piece a bronze portrait of a black african woman we have an idea to do something like this now they have to make the molds cast the metal and then ruin it all make damage marks c Create a fontina make it look ancient well done name too have fun with this I know it takes a lot of skill it falls off as I said as it is by bones and here we have two bronze sculptures one is a lady's head dated to the late Hellenistic period or 2nd century according to scholarly opinion and this is a supposed goddess a bust that was placed on a round shield in Tondo as it is called they are all part of the collection d e ancient art in Basel and his aunt are on display August 8, the Basel Museum of Ancient Art is the only museum in Switzerland that exclusively exhibits classical antiquities.

The two sculptures that Stéphane Lehmann thinks are very suspicious were located here, considered stars of the exhibition. The museum's director, Andrea B Nazca, sent one of them to the workshop for further examination by curators. The museum received the sculptures as part of a private bequest gift from the lottery collection in Artin Stephan Lehmann believes that the sculpture is the work of the spanish master he has come i listen to subbaraj i must say that all this surprised me we did not know that layman was conducting such investigations and that it still included our two bronze sculptures from the Ludwik collection their former owners Peter and Elena Ludwig collected art and acquired this bronze sculpture on the art market, but the museum has no information about its exact provenance.

The idea of ​​classical works with no known origin or provenance finding their way into public museums through the art market is something that Stefan Liam and applause Lehmann have classy for sure they are superficial yes Lehman is a classical archaeologist he is a professor at a university it is curator at the Archaeological Museum but he is not a specialist in bronze statues although he seems to think using fun Michigan what I don't like in this case is this a barrage on me personally in the museum on my colleagues so far there is absolutely no proof so that i stick to the version that these objects are cl original asical original sentient ancient art works that is the sunnatullah' her machines and in many immediate yes of course museums never have fun obviously when important artifacts displayed in your main camera is called into question, it always immediately leads to personal differences, that's normal you can't avoid that completely nte in the composition constant scene of a stenka but we Fargo but I think that the question of whether they are original sculptures or modern forgeries is so important that we have to be above these trifles it is clear Ian and Becks a Muslim back in the lack of field and the Hoffer institute preparations are underway for a second scan of the Swiss or Gustus collectors after the failure of the first attempt to obtain a CT scan. linear accelerator Until now, no Museum collector was prepared to hand over a suspected fake for such an examination, therefore no work was attributed to the master.

These scientific methods have shown that r is false. Scientists have to leave the room due to extremely high radiation from the linear accelerator, so the function is that the examination focuses on the metal alloy in the bronze sculpture. Is it really from ancient times? they have the same characteristics as a bronze statue made 2,000 years ago one suspicion is that counterfeiters melt down old coins to mold new heads a clever approach what device makes this token and it is a perkinelmer detector with 200 micrometer pixel pitch again host dolphin de Quinta we believe that due to a variety of material characteristics corresponding to antiquity, this sculpture is made of genuine ancient material.

There is old material available for things like this and it wouldn't be a completely new idea to use or have used old material for face fakes. once the process works Mona looks at the cross sectional pictures of the head and notices that the patina on the head is on ly on the outer surface that's weird my sister's material and you can see that this material has a density different from the material that surrounds it, which has a different alloy composition, we have carried out metallographic tests, that is, on a cross section of the material and the outer shell and determined, on the one hand, that the corrosion that looks very bad to the naked eye view is only on the surface which should not be cleaned with methionine which is filled which leads us to conclude that this artifact was created in modern times and designed to look very ancient choice Tuskegee scientific methods have shown that the sculpture of Augustus bronze is fake Declare war against us 1b slang griffin airfare I think the authorities are reluctant to regulate the art market because it is seen as a market Strong art do is in the interest of the German economy maybe without knowing exactly what is happening today dear taxes since they want you in their flat with us fear I think we have learned a lot in the last few months to start this trade because it's so profitable that it attracts those who try to profit from counterfeit artifacts, so we need to be on our guard, especially when we take note of how inaccurately many items are described when offered for sale. on board in the universe if you want to import ukrainian sausages to the EU you need an import license certification a list of ingredients and chemical analysis cultural artifacts archaeological artifacts can be imported like this without all documentation and certification so we have to assume that a proportion corresponding number of forgeries is on the market between 40 and 50 percent amanda's is pathetic as an archaeologist at Stephan Lehmann University can use his academic freedom to evaluate items from the art trade today he has reason to be pleased with his new book on Suspicious and counterfeit bronze heads has been published with the results of the new tests in the institute of agricultural offer that give you certai nty Dickey in the Sun in the city the study on ladies and gentlemen dear students, I am happy to give you the welcome here at our book launch at your Martin Luther University in Hara Ely it's two owned businesses in my opinion the scholarship needs to respond clearly and effectively to these challenges only then can we defend the foundation of our theme against this money grabbing attack and this is how it presents the results of His latest museum research in France in John, a small town where Picasso spent his retirement close to a congenial British billionaire, has established a private museum housing a series of heads that he has acquired and exhibited, but which can hardly be described as works of art. classics, in my opinion Colm is having fun, but while Stefan Lehmann presents the results of his researchAnother bronze head that he describes in his book as highly suspect appears in the US.

It is presented as a loan from an anonymous private collector and it is this bronze head of Alexander the Great that Laman attributes to the workshop of the Spanish master. It is not an isolated case. Archaeologist Oscar Muscarella has observed that United States museums have often exhibited dubious works of art, the prominent collector decides to make a donation to the Museum 99% of the time and maybe a hundred, but the object is generous 99% of the time. % of the time the Pureland manager will take it, if so, factor in why they want this collector. to give more stuff than you should for financial contributions in very few cases and if a curator recognizes one or two items to be fake they will be kept in the basement and very few rare cases will be kept in the sink in most cases for a display of the collection of some donated you see and the family of the donors get the prestige of this situation and you had this all over the United States.

The bronze sculpture is exhibited without any detail of provenance. Christoph lay in an old hand in the art trade also comes to the conclusion that the head is the work of the Spanish master that only belongs to the dome and is now displayed in a metropolitan where it is on display as a loan displayed there certainly wo Not bad for its market value. I expect the head to come up for auction again in the not too distant future. It will surely appear again. Who will make Tita shine and what happens to the identity and whereabouts of the Spanish teachers.

We still don't know anything about Stefan. Lehmann suspects that what he has discovered so far is just the tip of the iceberg, and that there are many forgeries on display in museums around the

world

.