As the old adage proves time and again, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Such is the case with an "ancient" Egyptian fragmentary figure with no head, arms or legs that cost the Bolton Museum in the UK nearly $1-million ... and is a modern forgery.
The forgery was produced by the notorious Greenhalgh family, which include the 84-year-old wheelchair-bound father George, his wife Olive (83), and their son Shaun (47). The parents were given suspended sentences in January for health reasons, and the son nearly five years in prison after their conviction in the UK courts. The Greenhalghs apparently had a uncanny talent for faking works of art that ranged from antiquities to modern painting and stretched over a 17 year period.
While fakes and forgeries exist in every segment of the art market, it is ironic that the highest end of the market, where one assumes the greatest access to scientific and art historical expertise, is no less susceptible. In fact, it is at this level, that the intense competition and the allure of discovering a great new masterpiece can cause a blind spot fooling the the few experts privileged to quietly examine the object in private (for fear of tipping off potential competitors) to accept it as "authentic" when it surely would not have stood the test of time when opened to public scrutiny by the wider global community of curators, dealers, art historians and scientists.
In the specific case of the Bolton Museum's 'Amarna Princess', as the discredited alabaster torso has been called, here are some of the opinions that were offered along the way and led to the purchase of the statue for £440,000 in 2003:
In 2002 a London auction house valued the statue at £500,000.
Bolton Museum and funding bodies involved in the purchase sought and received additional independent advice and those experts concluded that it was an authentic figure from the Amarna period.
There were few comparable objects to compare the statue to, apart from a statue in the Louvre Museum in Paris. For this reason the statue’s provenance (ownership history) played an important part in the authentication of the statue
Experts at the British Museum also concluded that it was a genuine piece, according to a statement from the Bolton Museum.
In a copy of the British Museum's original report recently acquired under the Freedom of Information Act by The Art Newspaper, the report described the statue as a "fine example" from the Amarna Period and "the quality of the sculpture and the presence of the side-lock indicate that it must depict one of the daughters of Akhenanten himself." The report goes on to say that "the rarity of sculptures of this size and quality from the period makes this one of the most important Egyptian antiquities to come to light for many years."
According to The Art Newspaper, the BM report did make one ominous statement about the object: "On the back of the figure are areas of white deposit on the surface, the origin of which is not clear. Scientific testing could almost certainly indicate whether this deposit is ancient or modern."
Its not clear what the result of such tests would have revealed. What is clear is that in pursuit of the object Bolton never ordered such tests.
