Restituted sculpture of Alexander the Great — a forgery?

Stephan Lehmann first saw the bronze sculpture of the ancient ruler in 2000 at the Winckelmann Museum in the small town of Stendal in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The archaeologist, now retired, was then a professor at the university in Halle — and curious about the well-preserved ancient work, which was considered a sensation.

The sculpture, a bust of Alexander the Great, was on loan from a private collector, it was said. For Lehmann, one thing mattered: was it a fake? "I was there, I looked at it and I thought it was blatantly fake," he told DW. "That this was an original was out of the question."

Alexander III of Macedon (born ca. 356 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of Ancient Greece. He spent most of his ruling years conducting an extensive military campaign throughout western Asia and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, ranging from Greece to India.

A catalog of 'fake' artworks

Lehmann searched the museum catalog for provenance information, but to no avail. He asked the museum point-blank but got no answers. He repeated his requests, unsuccessfully. "Museums are never amused, that's clear, when important pieces on display in their main hall are called into question," he says.

That did not stop the archaeologist from continuing to call the sculpture a fake. Lehmann sees it as his duty to reveal the history of suspicious works. He fears that a rare find from antiquity might find its way into a museum catalog and thus be academically legitimized.

That's why, in 2015, he cataloged 36 ancient works of art that he believes to be fakes. Among them was the bronze statue of Alexander the Great. He also organized an exhibition on the subject at the Archaeological Museum of the University of Halle and called it: "Long Ago in Stendal."

Masterful forgeries

He also accused the museum of allowing itself to be misused as a "laundry" machine. The Winckelmann Society promptly sued him for libel. At the time, however, the court did not address the question that really interested Lehmann: Is the sculpture genuine?

But that would have been impossible, because immediately after the exhibition, the sculpture disappeared — it was considered lost for a long time. 

Lehmann believed it was the heist of a well-made forgery of an international art dealer mafia. To detect something like this, you need decades of experience, a great deal of knowledge — and intuition.

Those skills helped Lehmann when a Swiss collector sent him the supposedly ancient bust of Emperor Augustus for examination. "When you look at the details, you also have doubts as to whether this is really fake. It's perfectly done, after all. It's already masterful," he admitted to DW.

Who was the counterfeiter?

He had the sculpture scanned by computer tomography. Counterfeiters, as the assumption goes, have ancient coins melted down to cast new pieces from them. Theoretically, it's the perfect deception, because the material really is 2,000 years old. 

But the depiction of Augustus did not stand up to scrutiny. Some criteria, such as the degree of corrosion, did not line up, so it could be proven that the item had been cast more recently.

Lehmann suspects the bust is from the counterfeiting workshop of someone known as the Spanish Master, who has yet to be identified. Whoever this person may be, they often create busts of ancient rulers and give them a beautiful patina. The facial features are always very well preserved, as though by magic. And of course, the counterfeiters create pieces that are currently in demand on the art and antiquities market.

"Regarding the value of archeological objects, bronze statues are in the premiere category. They're something very special, and of course they draw the most attention," says Lehmann.

Lucrative business

Whenever a find of this sort turns up, there's no shortage of people wanting to buy it. "We're talking about money, money, and more money as the dominant factor," says Oscar White Muscarella, who for many years was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has watched dealers funnel fakes into the market, like galleries and art fairs. But the main gateways are auction houses, according to Muscarella. "At some point I realized that dealers in particular, but also collectors, were selling their fake objects at auction," he says.

"I once talked to a dealer about it, and he just smiled. What they do is this: Instead of selling fakes in their own store, they put the objects up for auction under a false name, then say, 'This ancient artifact comes from an old collection,' they invent a provenance, a Monsieur X. That way, these dealers don't show up in person in front of the buyers."

Restituted to Greece 

The bronze bust of Alexander the Great comes from the New York art trade, from the gallery of Robin Symes. The Briton is considered one of the key figures in the illegal trade in ancient objects and has since gone into hiding. His company was liquidated, and the art objects stored in various countries were confiscated. So the bronze sculpture of Alexander the Great also found its way back to Greece, as one of 351 objects identified as looted art. Alexander is "Number 11."

Stephan Lehmann learned about the issue from a Greek colleague who sent him a newspaper clipping with a photo. "He just wrote, 'Can this be?' And I looked and saw a box, and packed inside was 'Alexander from Stendal.' The accompanying text said it was a piece from the art warehouse of the criminal Robin Symes in Geneva... And so it reappeared."  

It's clear the bust should not have been exhibited in Stendal without proof of origin, as Lehmann had demanded in 2000. He still considers it to be a fake but is pleased that it has been found again. After all, it could have been melted down, or be in the living room of a billionaire. "But to turn up as a retransfer to a state, that's spectacular," Lehmann thinks.

Now, he hopes the material will be investigated. He assumes Athens is aware the bronze is suspected of being a forgery. After all, the Greek Minister of Culture herself holds a doctorate in archaeology. It is now up to the Greek state to investigate the provenance of the Alexander bronze. If it is genuine, it's worth many millions of euros. Or it could be worth only 100 euros, the value of its material. That, however, would be an inglorious end for Alexander the Great.

This article has been translated from German.