Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-03
ALLEGED ANTIQUITIES
Not Many Fakes Found in the
National Museum.
TALK WITH PROF. HOLMES
He is in Charge Of the Ceramics and
Is an Expert.
SOME NOTED COUNTERFEITERS
Men Who Have Flooded the Country
With Fake Relics of the
Indians.
SOME NOTED COUNTERFEITERs


the National Museum has been revived by
some of the local papers and the statement
made that large number of pottery frauds
had been discovered and were being segre-
gated in a special collection to show Wis
itors in general and collectors in particular
what manufacturers were doing In that
line. Prof. Holmes, in charge of the ce-
ramics of the museum and an especial ex-
pert In ancient art and pottery, was asked
the facts in the case and replied that
nothing had been done in that line for a
number of years.
1t is quite true that spurious antiques of
pottery and other things are manufactured
In large quantities in all parts of the world,
and the museum has at different times
taken In some of these fake specimens. But
the methods and work of the trade are so
well known that 1t is not often in these
days that the museum buys anything in
that line. The fakes Is the past have been
mostly the contributions of well-meaning
tourists who presented or loantDl them in
good faith The frauds were set apart
whenever discovered and there Tvs been no
effort to make special collection of them.
What the museum needs in the antique
pottery line it depends it's own men to
dig up out of the ground, and while it
knows all about the frauds, there is no
particular danger of it's buying any.
Pottery an Easy Thing to Fake.
Pottery is one of the easiest things to
fake. because of the cheapness of the
terial and the ease of working it. There
are regular antique manufactures of this
sort in Mexico and you can buy pretty
much anything in the way of antiquities
you want. Some of them, in fact, are willing
to turn out antiques to order if furnished
with drawings and specifications.
or course there iS lot of this counter
feiting done" said Prof. Holmes 1T is not
confined to Mexico. Wherever there is a
demand the supply will meet it. There are
works of this sort in Rome and Athens and
in China and Japan. So long as there are
thousands of credulous tourists there will
be clever fakirs to furnish them with what
they want. Some of the bone, stone and
metal work is exceedingly good If a man
has access to a museum for models and Is
clever at his trade he can produce things
that even the expert will find it hard
sometimes impossible to detect That is
the reason we are very careful about the
things we buy.
The museum was unintentionally i'm
posed on not long after the Mexican war
with a lot of spurious antiques brought
back by one of the army officers and pre-
sented to the museum in perfectly good
faith. l went down to Mexico nearly fifteen
years ago and saw numerous specimens of
the work and bought some and brought
them back with me.
The result of Mr. Holmes trip was pub
lished by the Smithsonian in 1886. illus
trated with lot of pictures Of the faxed
curios, and shows how clever and
nefarious trade is made to pay. The pot
terry is made without the aid of a wheel
and decorated with all sorts of designs, and
sometimes with elaborate heads and models
in ancient form. This is where the counter
feiterS frequently overreach themselves and
make their work easy for expert to de-
tect They a rule have no scientific
training, and they make religious and GER
emonial utensils with decorations that
rC.,,1i np1X hn cd IN oil
and decorate household vessels with designs
and ornaments that are never found except
on ceremonial utensils. One of their tricks
Is to make mOldS of little genuine clay
antiquities and stick clay models from
these molds their own handmade YES
sells. They Overdecorate and decorate with
out any idea as to the real significance Of
the designs they use. So that it is COM
paratively easy for one to tell the real from
the spurious work.
Several Antique Counterfeiters.
There are several clever antique counter
feiters in this country. There lives, or did
live recently, near Deerfeld, Wis, a Danish
youth who flooded a number of the mu-
seums and many private collections with
fake stone implements arrow heads, fish
hooks, spear heads and knives that were
better and more ornate than any the In
dams ever turned out In fact it was his
development in art that finally threw sus-
piciOn on him. His name was Lewis Erickson
and he belonged to family of hard-Work-
ing farmers. He was boy of no particu-
lar education, but once while handling some
rough stone specimens while recovering
from a speel of sickness he found 1t was
easy, once you had the trick of taking off
the flint just as did the Indians who made
the implements originally He filed up
an old pair of iron pinchers to do the work
more easily and soon began to turn out
marvelously fine work. He did not have
the knack Of starting the taking, but got
old pieces of Indian quarry refuse. rejected
specimens and other things of the sort and
worked them up into very beautiful imple-
ments, many of them bizarre shapes that
the Indians never dreamed of. 1t did not
take him more than half hour to turn
out some of his best specimens, and he is
estimated to have sold about 1000 pieces
at from 50 to So each.
Curiously enough, without any scientific
training, he followed In his own work the
very development of the Indian artisans,
beginning with the ruder,. sharp-edged i'm
plements and developing and turning out
fine specimens Of the very highest stone
art.
Others of the Same Class
There was not long ago a man named
Robinette living near Flag Pond. Va. who
made a living turning out spurious Indian
pipes, many of them of higher art designs
than the Indians ever reached.
There was also a marble yard in Phila-
delphia that turned out Indian stone
axes ready to fit into wooden handles, and
there was a place recently in southern In
diana that made very excellent slate cary
tngs and ornaments, all OF them spurious,
but sold as real antiques.
One of the most remarkable pieces Of
fake carving the museum has ever seen
was submitted to Prof. Baird when he was
living several years ago. 1t came from
some one down in Texas and was beauti-
full piece of work in smooth stone about
three feet long 1t was grotesque animal
made up with part of the head of a rhin-
oeeros. the feet OF elephant. the beak
of a parrot the tail of a lizard and the
hind feet of an alligator. But II was clearly
a fake. for the work was too fine and the
design was such as mono of the Indian
tribes ever conceived 1t was sent back
and afterward lost sight of and possibly
now is the show piece in some private col
lection.