The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-12-16
WERE DECEIVED
TANAGRA FIGURINEs ACCEPTED AS
GENUINE FOR TWENTY YEARS.
1t Is No Thing for Art Con-
n~oisseurs to Blunder Sadly
in Their Estimates.

Philadelphia Press.
Mr.. Edward Robinson and the Boston
Museum lave just illustrated, as other
curators and other museums have before
that archaeological criticism is not yet an
exact science.
In October, 1919, the Boston Museum re-
ceived from Thomas G. Appleton, twenty
two Tanagra fgurines, for which $5o,VVo was
paid. if correctly reported. These figures
had just been bought from a dealer
They were then the only collection
yet imported to this country. They
had passed all the usual tests. They
were installed in the place of homo
in the museum. For twenty-one years they
lave received an unstinted admiration.
More than one man and woman anxious to
train his eye In this most interesting form
of Greek art has laborously studied these
pieces, piece by piece. This summer they
were examined by al undoubted expert
They were put to a final test. The whitish-
gray c~oloring was removed. The figurines
were discovered TO be forgeries. They be-
long to that last stage in the discoveries at
Tanagra after six years of digging had ex-
hausted the original finds, when the frag-
ments Of heads, arms and bodies made in
the darker red clay which had often
crumbled, were taken to Athens, ingenious
iy pieced together, pieced out with modern
work, given a uniform coating, and sold,
as In this case, at an average of something
over Sl,5OO apiece. A number like them are
now for sale in this country. MIR. Edward
Robinson looks upon himself not unfairly,
as an expert in these matters. In common
with all his predecessors, he has been ut
terly and woefully deceived. When the ar
tificial coloring was scraped of. modern
UlllQ mQ6arn rnpED1onShf onA UhntoCnlQ
forgery became apparent. The fgurines
have been retired from view in the Boston
Museum. Mr.. Edward Robinson sins in
good company. The Louvre has the great
gold crown of ancient workmanship which
is believed to be a forgery. The Berlin
Museum was deceived by Shapiro, and has
a cellar full of inscriptions. Among other
things, the British Museum has a conspicu-
Gus Egyptian throne, which most of those
whose opinion is worth considering outside
or the museum, look upon as a forgery.
Even the gem collection of the British Mu-
scum. assorted and assigned as IL is by Mr..
Murray, has more than one gem about
which opinions gravely differ as TO whether
1t was cut in the days of the Antonines
and the Hadrians or in the time of the
Renaissance.
THERE ARE OTHERS.
The experience of the Boston Museum
matters of taste are relative. For them
AN az IN AACu 1OlIl. <tlllSl dIu AMATEUR,
expert and visitor, has been able to see in
the Appleton collection of Tanagra fig
urines all the signs of a fresh. spontaneous
Greek art, when as a matter of fact all
they had before them was the compare
lively clumsy work of a Levantine forger
who was gluing together bits and frag-
mentS from various sources, supplemented
by the modelling done by Greek potter,
who was probably paid about so cents a
daV This does NOT show thar there are
no certain signs, because these forgeries
have been at last discovered; out it does
breed a wholesome suspension Of judgment
ii regard to the categorical assertions OF
those who are experts, particularly il, like
Mr.. Iva Robinson, who has been SO
long deceived by these figurines, they are
only men who have gone through Euro
pean museums, have a few
pieces, AVE studied and read much. and
at last have bred in their own minds a
habit of subjective which is not based
on that endless experience gained from
examining day after day, as a dealer does,
figure after figure, piece after piece, until
one is at last soaked with the minute
changes, alterations, lines and modelings
or originals. Yet men, like the curator
of the Boston Museum, are always talking
In despite of the dealer, and are extremely
apt TO imagine that archaeological knoWl.
edge breeds the archaeological eye. 1t does
this no more than the experience of a bank
teller gives him knowledge of political
economy and the banking measure A man
may understand the theory and practice
of banking to the last ultimate fact, and
be the worst possible judge of a counter
felt bill. A teller behind his grating may
be infallible in dealing with counterfeits
and ignorant of everything relating to
banking except the narrow routine or his
own desk. The archaeological student ard
the dealer, the art critic and picture ex-
pert, are in somewhat relative positions
when they come to decide as TO the gen.
uineness OF a specific piece.
AS TO GREEK ART
The other lesson, and it ought to be writ
large in every book and lecture on Art
is that the attempt to treat Greek work as
If it were a thing apart, al. of whose parts
and pieces possess some supernal excel
lence, is unmitigated nonsense. The best
Greek work in certain lines has never been
equaled, and probably never will be. The
average capacity for design and delineation
at the best period of Greek art was so high
over the entire Greek world as TO make the
average capacity of the modern world seem
foolish. But Greek work grades and varies
like all others. Tanagra is a little town in
Beotia, where in 1872 Jorgis Anyphantis, a
peasant from Corfu, discovered that the
lombs were full of enchanting little stat
uettes a few inches high, made of a light
volcanic clay, which instantly wrote a new
chapter in Greek folk art. None had beer
seen before, with here and there a stray
example. Some six thousand or eight thou.
sand were eXhUmed In hall a dozen years
They were sold at the start for $40 apiece
In ten years the bests pecimens were bring
ing from $1,000 TO s., 800. They were orig.
inally made by having a pressed piece
| mold, in which the statue was cast in clay
1t was then nodded n modelled while wet
the face often worked over so as to give 8
portrait effect, changes sometimes made IN
the styles, which indicate decided diversity
of taste in couture and costume amons
Beotian women-about whose easy hospi
tality there is more than one interesting
but unprintable line in Greek letters-col
ored, fired and buried, sometimes broker
on the coffin, as we strew flowers.
| Other figures OF a somewhat simifa- sorr
have been found at Smyrna, Corinth anC
Tarsus, and stray ones, probably importa
tions, in the Cyrenaic PentapoliS. These
| greatly varied. The best Tanagra figurine.
are as vivid genre as the world has seen
The poorest are really not very much above
the better product of biSque and Parian
which will be bought in the next thirt,
days and clutter some overloaded shelves
and what-nots, cabinets and mantelpieces
until they are broken. But, with object:
which date back to the second half of the
fourth century b. c., it is extremely diff.
cult TO record with even-handed taste. Ons
is inevitably obfuscated, as was Mr.. Ed.
ward Robinson, by the accepted Inscription
of antiquity. Admiration is largely an act
of will. They admire partly what they
wish 10 admire. Tastes and prejudice,
spring from the same root stock, and tn,
people who admired the Tanagra figGrine:
| Of Boston when they believed them to b.
made In Tanagra will see nothing extraor
| binary in them now that they know the,