[Rarebooks] FS: An Amazing Classical Find!! (well, ok, not really)

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

TITLE: “Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
With a Report on the Structure and Technique by Charles F. Binns”

By Gisela Richter, M.A.
Published in New York by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Papers No.6.
1937. Edition limited to 500 copies.

DISCUSSION: A gigantic (to say the least) scholarly “oopsie”. This is a
detailed report on several massive, ancient Etruscan terra cotta warriors
in the Met's collection, in fact they were the stars of the Met's
collection of ancient art at the time this glowing report was written. The
problem would later turn out to be that they weren't, well, ancient.

Let's turn the clock back a bit-

In late 1915 Gisela Richter, renowned expert on Greek and Roman
antiquities at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, received a letter
from John Marshall, the Museum’s veteran purchasing agent in Italy,
describing a newly discovered life-size Etruscan warrior figure in
terra-cotta which had been discovered in an Italian field. The “old
warrior” (he had a white beard and was emaciated, somewhat like, as one
observer commented later, a Giacommetti sculpture) was soon followed by a
massive four-foot tall terra cotta warrior’s head, and there was even talk
of a greater treasure waiting to be found...

It was, of course, all fakery, carried out on a grand, almost “mythic”
scale, a scale meant to make experts put aside all their nagging doubts
and see the “Etruscans” as what they were not (namely, ancient). The first
two pieces had been created by Riccardo Riccardi and Alfredo Fioravanti,
two young men of skill and a certain vision. Riccardo’s father and
brothers had also specialized in historic pottery, but Riccardo was the
true genius of the family, and with his friend Alfredo he set out to
produce “masterpieces” that would wow the world’s museums. The
white-bearded warrior and massive head were the first two, followed
immediately after World War One by the capping stroke- a Colossal Warrior
in terra cotta, standing over eight feet tall. Riccardo was killed in a
fall from his horse before this project was completed and his place was
taken by two less-skilled cousins.

As with the earlier pieces, the statue had to be fired in pieces as it was
much too large for the kiln. It proved, in fact, to even be too large for
the room it was being modeled in, and by the time they had modeled up as
far as the waist it was obvious that the elegant classical proportions of
genuine Etruscan sculpture would have to be ignored –there simply was not
enough room for the upper body without going through the ceiling. The odd
result- classical legs and a stocky, disproportionate torso, troubled
various scholars, but was explained away in a classic fit of wishful
thinking.

In 1921 the Met. purchased the warrior for an undisclosed price said to
have approached 5 million dollars in today’s money. Attempts to erase
doubts that were already being whispered in art circles in Europe, as well
as the hope that the “secret” field they had been found in might be
divulged by their “discoverers”, delayed the publication of this scholarly
study of them until 1937. For Richter, bringing them to the Met. and
publishing them represented one of the crowning achievements of her
distinguished career, and it was undoubtedly this fact that blinded her to
what was becoming all too obvious to other scholars who were not
emotionally or professionally attached to the warriors.

The talk about their true origins swirled quietly for the next decade or
two, but after a visiting Italian scholar was offered a chance to see the
statues in 1959, and commented that he did not need to see them since he
knew the man who had made them, authorities at the museum decided
something had to be done.

In 1960 a series of tests concluded that the glazes on all three specimens
contained chemicals which had not been in use before the 17th century, and
in 1961 Fioravanti signed a confession of the whole affair, and supplied a
missing thumb which fitted perfectly. At that point several other
“bothersome” points that had been noted over the years began to make more
sense- the Colossal Warrior could not even support its own weight, for
instance, and when compared to real Etruscan statuary, simply looks crude
and even modern. Today the statues are stored far away from prying eyes,
but they still provide an entertaining and sobering lesson in fake
busting. A much more detailed account of the warriors was written by David
Sox in his excellent book “Unmasking the Forger, The Dossena Deception”
(1987).

DESCRIPTION: Card covers. 9.5”x12.5”, 218 pages plus 24 black & white
illustrations.

CONDITION NOTES: Minor wear, but overall clean and nice, with a tight
binding and no marks.

PRICE: $175-

SOME PICTURES =>

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