Author: Pietro Villari, 2019. All Right Reserved.
Translated in English language from https://www.thereportersblog.com/2019/03/manipolazioni-illusorie-and.html and posted on thereporterblog.com March 8, 2019. Since June 19, 2020 only available on thereporterscorner.com.
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In the last two years I have dedicated part of the study activities (1) to
the monitoring of sales carried out by various international
auction houses in the field of American pre-colonial antiquities. The existence
of phenomena attributable to illusory manipulations has been highlighted, that
is to say, of mental mechanisms that help orientate customer purchases, by
making sure that the description of the lots, their origin, date and cultural
attribution are accepted as realities. In some case it has also been possible
to observe that modern artisanal imitations have been catalogued and sold as expensive
artifacts from the past.
Here are presented some preliminary considerations about the sales
mechanisms of these objects, also trying to focus the
motivations that push many merchants and collectors to buy them. In almost all
of the sales, the total lack of valid documentation of the provenance of the lots
and of the experiments conducted by qualified professionals in the sector was ascertained.
These serious shortcomings do not stop the current period of market expansion,
despite the strong suspicion, also manifested by eminent American academics
dedicated to the study of falsifications of American prehistoric antiquities,
that most of the artifacts on the international market and even in prestigious
museum institutions are not authentic (2).
Introduction
The objects
we deal with are currently produced by artisans moved by the great passion for
working materials available in nature such as clay, stone, bone and metal,
turning them into objects inspired by shapes and decorations created by
American prehistoric populations. The bond of these artisans to their work is
often based on a strong attraction to those cultures no longer existing, to the
point that sometimes we can identify the craftsman’s “hand”, with this word
meaning the set of constant peculiarities in their works. Most of them are
mistakes, committed in the way of presenting myths and symbols in a key of
unconscious revision, where their lack of in-depth studies is filled by fantasy
and personal logical deductions (3).
The
mistakes can also be of a technical nature such as, to cite the most frequent,
the use of improper types of clays, synthetic or otherwise inappropriate paints
and varnishes, substances and tools that leave traces of modern chemical and
physical treatments to “antiquise” the surfaces, of modern machinery for
processes of working stones unknown in the past, of the composition of metal
alloys or metals whose impurities can be identified by analyzes as improper as
often coming from other areas of the planet, to mention only the most frequent
incongruities.
By
identifying these inconsistencies, the expert can suspect the non-authenticity
of the object and confirm it by submitting it to further laboratory analysis.
Generally, these expenses are borne by the owner or the buyer only if the value
of the object is estimated to be much higher.
The
counterfeiting of American pre-colonial artifacts has been documented since the
beginning of the nineteenth century, but since the 1960s, especially in Mexico
and Peru, it has begun to take on worrisome dimensions (4). From the
1970s to today it has grown exponentially, coming to infest important public
and private collections around the world, but it is in the United States that
has reached the maximum expansion with tips that in some cases has been
revealed can reach almost the totality of the exhibits. The same
observation applies to the catalogs of major auction houses and antique
galleries in the absence of adequate legislative regulation on the subject.
This
phenomenon has hit Europe right from the beginning, presenting itself today in
all its drama in the “old collections” put up for auction or in the
materials recently produced, offered for sale by various auction houses in the
total lack of no effective countering by the institutions responsible for
combating fraud.
We must not
forget that the falsifications have created a heavy damage to the nations that,
like the United States, have set themselves the task of increasing public
education through a strong expansion of the museum collections by granting tax
benefits to those who donate objects of high scientific or artistic interest.
It is thus guaranteed to deduct from the tax a substantial percentage of the
value resulting from the examination conducted by State officials or private
professionals on behalf of the museum institutions.
The
operation proved to be a double-edged sword, favoring the establishment of
criminal activities, to the point that today, decades after the donations, it
is obvious the presence of very high percentages of fakes in many American
museums. A party of rich and easy malfeasance for those belonging to power
lobbies, through which it was possible to create criminal systems where
corruption and connivance have been widely disseminated and covered at high
levels. Artists, intermediaries, antique dealers, museum officials and
lecturers of university institutes have concentrated in the consortiums the
power to introduce authentic objects into museums and private collections,
which have long been discovered smuggled by poor nations and at shockingly low
prices.
But it is
above all an immense quantity of falsifications, both artisanal and high-level
artistic works that has invaded the nations of the Western Bloc, a business
sector that evidently happened under the control of part of the Deep
States network, with the epicenter of the United States. The powers
that have managed this Deep Event are still today almost
totally unknown, but in all probability constituted and organized in a similar
way to the Italian ones (5).
This trade has fattened many bank accounts, probably also coming to alleviate the payment of taxes by major private bodies, with savings of millions of dollars. A similar phenomenon can be considered to have happened in Europe, or in those countries that had the same procedures of donation. The most striking fact, based on what emerges from the research, is the absolute lack of investigations carried out until the identification and punishment of the guilty parties, and their compensation to the tax authorities of the unpaid amounts.
The sources
of supply for auction sales
There are
three main ways through which modern imitations of American pre-colonial
artifacts can reach auction houses:
– the large
quantities of objects that the wholesalers buy directly from the artisans
dedicated to these productions, and which subsequently distribute nationally or
internationally to their sales network;
– art
galleries and antique dealers which, through intermediaries or direct
relationships, are supplied by highly specialized artists in counterfeits;
–
collectors who, generally after several years from the purchase, have noticed
that they have been defrauded and wish to dispose of the items without
suffering losses or, not infrequently, to earn money by presenting them to the
auction houses as authentic as described in the purchase invoices.
The first
group can be distinguished artisans who have learned the trade working since
they were young, in specialized workshops under the direction of a master,
continuing their productions and inventing new ones, sometimes even devoting
themselves to the study of pre-Columbian cultures and experimenting with new
techniques and tools. work. Most of these “traditional” shops produce large
quantities of manufactured articles, specializing in the processing of a
certain material, generally to obtain ceramic, lithic, or precious metal
objects. Almost always they circumscribe the production to the imitation of
artifacts of the ancient cultures present in their region, being inspired by
those present in the local collections and using the same raw materials of antiquity.
In general,
we can distinguish artisans dedicated to the production of two types of
commercial products. One is addressed to the touristic low-quality market,
obtained with industrial materials, modern tools and techniques. These are the
so-called souvenirs on sale, especially in the markets in kept
close to areas of archaeological interest, that guarantee a low income for a
poor survival. In the same workshop there is therefore an artisanal production
of a higher quality, manufactured with techniques and materials similar to the
originals, antiquing the surfaces with regional “recipes” invented and
perfected over the last two hundred years. In the case of ceramics, together
with the antique look they also reproduce the typical smell, which in the
originals is due to the long permanence in the ground.
That of the
artists is instead a separate caste, made up of characters often endowed with
refined culture, genius, and great technical skills. They almost always work on
commission, participating in the realization of projects of works that are not
only outwardly perfect, but possess the evocative power of the symbol and myth
belonging to the artistic expression of the prehistoric American populations.
Each of these high-level artists acts on two fronts: a public one, releasing
the regular invoice of his modern art works or remotely inspired by American
pre-colonial or colonial artistic styles, and a parallel activity, not
advertised and reserved to a few clients to whom the artist is bound by a
mutual relationship of trust and professional secrecy that does not admit
interference or betrayal. They possess expensive libraries and instruments, and
thanks to their belonging to associations of power within which they find cover
and connivance, they are able to obtain dossiers and confidential scientific
publications that keep them in step with the research that attempts to contain
counterfeits. They have thus the technical-scientific information useful to
overcome not only the obstacles of the first stages of expertise, that of the
connoisseur, of the art critic and of the academic expert, but also in the next
steps, carried out by laboratory analyses. These are directed to establish the
composition of each part of the object, the qualitative and quantitative,
chemical and physical characteristics, which establish the antiquity, thus
achieving the opinion of authenticity expressed by the best internationally
renowned scholars.
Obviously,
the artifacts coming from these two branches of production of the system,
artisans and artists, correspond to different commercial values: from the few
dollars for the production reserved for the tourist market, to the tens of
thousands of dollars paid to the artist, including for the latter also the
surplus consisting of the uniqueness of the object and the guarantee of
silence.
A different topic is that of imitations that after being placed in important
private collections as authentic, and from these sometimes lent for exhibitions
in public institutions. In the vast majority these collections have a
relatively short “life”, being formed and sold within a period of between sixty
and ten years. Once the collecting activity has ceased, the imitations
originally acquired as authentic can be inherited by third parties or be
subject to testamentary sales to cover the succession expenses or, as in the
case of legacies to philanthropic institutions, to finance the activities. Many
objects are acquired by collectors through the work of intermediaries or
antique dealers to whom they are commissioned.
A
phenomenon that can occur in these steps is that, even if there are doubts
about the authenticity, it is the practice of continuing to maintain the
original status until proven otherwise, avoiding compromising the reputation of
the characters involved in the story over time. From an investigative point of
view, it is very difficult to demonstrate the presence of “conspiracy of
silence” episodes, behavioral practices within professional categories and
collector families, a form of corporate protection that involves high social
classes and the credibility of the collecting system of high level, its market
niche and the significant financial investments at stake.
In the
collections belonging to the middle class, we often notice a “logic” of
preparation that reveals the interests of their owners in the artistic field, a
form of collecting understood as a way of “initiation” to esotericism,
religious conceptions and American pre-colonial shamanic practices. It is a
collecting that involves purchases of very coveted artistic objects, where the
percentage of buying counterfeits is very high. In these cases, the percentages
of non-authentic objects in testamentary legacies are very variable, depending
on the degree of perception and knowledge of the owner, his sources of supply
and the technical-scientific preparation of the experts consulted before the
purchase of each individual object.
By monitoring the system it was possible to hypothesize how, frequently, what
is delivered to the Dutch auction houses, which together with the French ones
are among the most active in Europe in the sales of American pre-colonial
objects, represents the difference between the private sale of collections
described above. The thesis is that after separating the authentic finds by
assigning them to private negotiations, the falsifications able to “pass” or
make the “on sight” experiments very difficult are generally delivered to
auction houses with medium-sized international clientele, maintaining the
description and the declarations of genuineness issued at the time of purchase
by other auction houses or antique dealers, and taking care to accompany them
to other lots of authentic findings but of modest commercial value.
The group
of imitations where it is aesthetically evident the non-authenticity is
delivered to those auction houses that devote even less care in appraising the
lots received in commission, presenting it together with the scraps of genuine
finds (e.g. fragmentary vessels or with extensive restoration interventions or
pictorial remakes with “enrichments”, fragments of statuettes). Other finds of
evident fanciful creation dating back to the course of the nineteenth or early
twentieth centuries are offered, following the auction terminology specified in
each catalogue, as “ancient” where the dating is not specified.
Recently,
there is also the appearance of a more complex mechanism, able to create
sources of provenance, using figureheads on which to discharge the
responsibilities that entail criminal convictions and compensation for economic
damages. In this case it is generally used imitations of recent production,
which are introduced into the market through modest and notorious Dutch,
French, British and US auction houses, at very low prices, accompanied by
purchase receipts where unspecified origins are provided, false declarations of
ancient possession, or of ancient purchases made in certain Latin American
countries by collectors and antique dealers also bearing the relative date of
the object and prehistoric culture of belonging. In this first phase of the
mechanism they are purchased at auction by small retailers belonging to
different European nationalities (it is not known if in some cases the same
subjects are who “wash” their finds imported from the American continent). What
caught my attention, pushing me to start the research is the fact that a
few weeks later the same findings, with a timing that leaves little doubt, were
offered at another auction house now known internationally. In
accepting the lots, the “experts” (6) of this auction house also kept
the descriptions of the findings and provenances provided by the previous
auction house, ensuring that they checked the documentation certifying the
legal possession of the finds by of the seller. Purchased by other merchants,
these items coming from multiple ownership steps can be resold as authentic by
raising the new owner from criminal liability in the case of complaints.
Ultimately,
in Dutch auction houses, “precols” (7) often have a pleasant and
interesting appearance for the neophytes that make up the majority of visitors,
but which the expert identifies at first sight as imitations. On the other
hand, in order to make the whole offered, the fakes are always few compared to
the genuine objects but of little value, fragmented or restored, sometimes
presenting also “pastiche” (8).
If it seems
likely that part of the clientele of the auction houses is composed of small
borderline merchants, who see in the system a possibility of obtaining easy
money, it must be admitted that most of the customers are insufficiently
prepared for purchase, considering the auction houses as institutions all
equally reliable, guarantors of descriptions accompanying each lot and their
assessments of market value. Unfortunately, in these cases the reality can be
completely different and, in giving faith, the client enters an environment
where there may also be illusory manipulations.
The
manipulation is not based only on the use of appraisals performed by the staff
of the auction houses having no professional qualifications, such as degree and
specialization in the archaeological field and of a valid experience and
studies on counterfeits. Indeed, it is undeniable
that the elegance and richness of the exhibition environment, the
refined illustrations of the catalogues, the presence of customers belonging to
medium-high social ranks, in some cases also the appearance and the ceremonials
of the staff responsible for providing information about the lots on sale, the
skill of the auction beater in presenting the presumed qualities of the lots,
constitute a convincing set of excellence that undoubtedly contributes to the
formulation of an image of reliability of the auction houses. An
endorsement of an elitist nature that certainly stimulates the purchase of
incompetents in the matter and influences the decision to invest in peace and
with success a few hundred or thousands of euros for the purchase of
antiquities of much greater value.
Years
later, when buyers in good faith or more often their heirs discover the fraud
suffered, they can try to get rid of their fakes through merchants and auction
houses, thus perpetuating the scheme of fraud and “conspiracy of silence”. But
we must admit that some of the objects identified as fakes by the owners are
held in the family or donated to third parties as mere imitations or destroyed
(9).
It has been
possible to observe that in the presence of art objects accompanied by declared
but often undocumented origins (such as important auction houses, collections
belonging to well-known personalities and exhibitions at prestigious university
museums), the market reacts with the purchase at prices far higher. The
increase in value is determined by a sort of excellent story of the object,
which makes it a historical evidence, an heirloom of the “great family of
collectors” of American pre-colonial antiquities. It is evident here how
manipulation works by evaluating the object according to its recent history,
where the buyer accepts it as a valuable and celebrative element, a rather
common act in the antiquarian tradition.
Illusory manipulation, collecting American antiquities and financial
investments
In the
United States, since the second half of the last century collecting American
prehistoric artifacts has been a rather common social-cultural phenomenon in
the families belonging to the middle and upper classes. A fact that strikes
those who for the first time browse the US catalogues of auction houses of
pre-Columbian antiquities is the almost constant presence constituting the
majority, of names of Jewish origin of collectors from which the lots come,
usually after their death.
In this
case, especially when the authenticity is doubtful, the illusory manipulation
shows its power also acting at the ethnic-religious level. For the believer,
welcoming these objects by purchasing them is also an act of continuation of an
essential form of the previous owners, with beneficial effects for the new
owner. In fact, it is implied that the object possessed, even if not ancient,
but collected and loved by the previous owners contains part of their spiritual
qualities, being well-known characters also for what is positive done within
their community and in observance of the religious precepts (10).
The problem
is significant because it is a community that has a great influence on the
political and economic-financial level, not only in the United States, but also
on an international level. That’s including the great majority of all the power
components of the Western bloc’s antiquarian market, and the field of
scientific studies pertaining to the trade, smuggling and counterfeiting of
antiquities. As a consequence, all this can contribute to determining strong
market conditions and to protect the large investments belonging to that
community. In such a situation the suspicion is growing, supported only
by bizarre but numerous coincidences, that membership of
families of Jewish origin and belonging to the major Masonic brotherhoods are
now essential requirements to pave the way for professional careers, public and
private, even at prestigious Anglo-Saxon academic institutions, and that this
is becoming a trend that is starting to expand also in other European areas.
This plays heavily in favor of a popular intolerance and one should not
underestimate the damaging effects of the arrogance exercised by the dominant
power system, in its progress of consolidation both in the state apparatus and
in the Deep States network of the Western Bloc.
In
conclusion, the control of every socio-economic and cultural aspect of
populations through pyramidal structured apparatuses in a network of
transnational powers, is one of the emergencies of criminological interest that
are manifesting with increasing intensity in the last decades and that thanks
to the maintenance of other crisis situations, are obscured by the media (11). The
antiquities sales sector carried out through the auction houses, suffers from
issues that occur in the peripheral area of this
phenomenon. It is evident the necessity to make substantial changes in the
legislative regulation of these sales, above all in relation to the provenance
of the products, their expertise, and the responsibilities that the auction
houses should be obliged to take both in civil and criminal matters, trying to
close any possibility to the now secular perpetuation of fraud.
Footnotes
1 – research carried out at the Archaeological Center, a private institution based in the Netherlands that I run since January 1996. In 2013, the center starts to be also involved in the publication of monographs dedicated to studies in the field of imitations and reproductions of antiquities. The private structure allows to undertake studies without having to ask for permits and funds to academic hierarchies and make it fully free to collaborate with investigative professionals. Autonomy is also fundamental for freedom of expression, as the results are often noticeable by the involvement of personalities belonging to public institutional hierarchies in complex events of criminal interest. Relevant details as well as the behavior of the auction houses and the authenticity of the artifacts for sale, can eventually be filed after the conclusion of the monitoring period.
2 – It is eloquent what has been declared by two of the highest
authorities in pre-Columbian art: Karen Olsen Bruhns & Nancy L. Kelker, on
March 13, 2011 (updated in July 2015), in “ArtiFact or ArtiFake? The problem
of forgeries in Mesoamerican Art“, we read:
“Based
on our own observations and analysis of museum collection donations to which we
have had access, as well as auction listings, we estimate that at this moment,
a conservative estimate of the percentage of forgeries on sale or bought (and
ultimately donated) within, say, the past 30 to 50 years, is about 85% and
growing exponentially. Entire auctions at prestigious houses and galleries and
museum exhibitions often push the 100% forgery mark.”
www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/mexicos-faked-prehistory
read also:
Kinsella Eileen, July 7, 2017, “A Staggering 96% of the Artifacts in San
Francisco’s Mexican Museum May Be Fake “ https://news.artnet.com/art-world/mexican-museums-artifacts-mostly-fake-1016198
3 – in this regard, see the first chapter of Villari P., 2013, Guida alle
recenti riproduzioni italiane di ceramiche archeologiche, volume I,
Archaeological Center, 2013.
4 – illuminating the article by Kirstin Fawcett of September 18, 2017,
“Brigido Lara, the Artist Whose Pre-Colombian Fakes Fooled Museums Around
the World” where summarizes the decade-long activity of a Mexican
counterfeiter and restorer, ended with his arrest in 1974. Later, he declared
to use primitive tools produced by him and clays from the same supply areas
used in antiquity. In addition, he revealed the composition used to “antiquate”
the surfaces of his works, including the following ingredients: cement, lime,
warm water and urine, sealing everything with a mixture of beeswax and powdery
dirt.
5 – the problem has been object of study in this blog, read: “Transnational
operational structures and the supranational Deep States network. A
criminologist in the Ark of Noah” published July 30, 2018 on thereportersblog.com
Since June 19, 2020 only available on:
https://www.thereporterscorner.com/2018/07/transnational-operational-structures-and.html
6 – although defined as “experts” in online catalogues, it is
not clear what this definition refers to, since it has been possible to note
that, in some cases, they not only do not possess post-graduate degrees, but
are also not graduated, that make each of their appraisals credible. In one
case, it has been possible to discover that the title “Dr.” was referred to the
achievement of a PhD in Economics …
7 – In the commercial sect of antiquities, the term “precol” refers to
items manufactured by American pre-colonial populations.
8 – with the French term “pastiche” an object is defined composed of
fragments of two or more original artifacts, sometimes with large missing parts
integrated by restorations, including painted and other decorative
applications. In the great majority they are real counterfeits, which have
nothing to do with modern works where the fragment is only a decorative part
(for example the works of Gaudì, covered with enameled ceramic fragments or
porcelains belonging to various ages and areas of provenance).
9 – I also came across opposite situations. Among these I remember the
graceful example of munekas, a band of polychrome fabric dolls and
finely decorated, typical of a Peruvian prehistoric culture. I found it in a
second-hand gift shop, framed as a modern decorative object. The selling price
was equivalent to a coffee consumed at the bar, a thousand times lower than its
market value.
10 – For the origins of this belief read on this blog: “Commercio di
crani umani, collezionismo scientifico e rituali necromantici. È iniziata la
‘gold rush’ nelle aree cimiteriali europee di età moderna?” published on
thereportersblog.com on February 15th 2019, note 3, retreat on June 16, 2020
and re-posted in this blog on June 19, 2020.
11 – refer to note 5.
