[Rarebooks] FS: Fake Ancient Terra Cotta Warrior in 1937 Metropolitan Museum

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

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

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

A gigantic (to say the least) scholarly "oopsie".

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).

Card covers. 9.5"x12.5", 218 pages plus 24 black & white illustrations. 
Minor soil, light wear, but otherwise clean and nice, with a tight 
binding. $175

Some Photos =>
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