Metrpolitan Museum of Art Head of a King David
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is playing head games with an antique dealer who claims its 12th-century sculpture of King David's noggin is a fraud.
Robert Walsh, 62, took an interest in the Met's sculpture afterwards he bought a very similar head at a Greenwich Village antique store for $600 in 2012.
But when he beginning visited the Met'due south Rex David, he knew instantly that the fine-grained, gray limestone head — which the museum contends once graced a portal at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris — is not the real matter.
He believes it is a knock-off made between 1919 and 1920 in Paris, and that the model may take been his ain, valid sculpture.
The Met sculpture was caused by "Monuments Man" James Rorimer, a curator of medieval art for the museum who was played in the 2014 movie "Monuments Men" past Matt Damon.
Walsh, who says his caput is worth upwardly to $xx meg, expected the Met to embrace his findings. Instead, he has been consistently rebuffed since he came frontwards in 2012.
Walsh has spent the terminal five years immersed in research. He has had his caput scientifically tested and fifty-fifty traveled to Paris to consult with experts. In 2014, a piece of the limestone from Walsh'southward sculpture was drilled and tested by experts from the University of Missouri, which has a database of samples of antique French limestone. Walsh'south sculpture was establish to incorporate traces of limestone from a quarry in the Burgundy region of France, proving that the caput is indeed of French origin and an antique.
His inquiry has also revealed that the Met'southward head was originally for auction from a dubious French gallery that trafficked in fakes.
French art dealer Georges Demotte employed ane of France's greatest forgers, who turned out "antiquities" that were sold to the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum in the 1920s and 1930s. Walsh believes that Demotte's Paris-based forger used his head to brand the Met's sculpture.
In a landmark French investigation in 1923, Demotte's New York amanuensis Jean Vigoroux, chosen Demotte "the world's greatest faker," according to paper reports of the day. Vigoroux told a French court that Demotte "has inundated America with false art," and said that the gallery had sold at to the lowest degree half-dozen fakes to the Met.
The Met's head was first offered for exhibit and sale at Demotte's New York gallery in November 1930. The catalog lists the object as "Crowned King'due south caput." In that location is no mention of King David or Notre Matriarch. In fact, the itemize'due south preface says that the caput was found "in Paris in the surround of St. Germain de Pres," which is across the River Seine from Notre Dame.
The Met'south head was purchased for the museum past Rorimer in 1937 for $ii,500 to display at the The Cloisters, the Met's medieval art museum in northern Manhattan. Rorimer bought it from the art dealer Arnold Seligmann, who acquired the head after Demotte'southward son'due south death in 1934.
In that same yr, the Louvre in Paris bought a similar caput from Demotte's New York gallery. After Walsh contacted the famed French museum ii years ago, the head was removed from public display.
"I suddenly discovered there was something very wrong," said Walsh. "The museum'south story of their head is a lie."
And he is worried that the Met's refusal to acknowledge the truthful history of its sculpture will prevent him from cashing in on his.
The Met maintains that its head is the real matter. A spokesman said, "The Met'south Head of Rex David is an of import example of early gothic French sculpture that the Met is proud to feature in its medieval galleries. Our firm conclusion after extensive research is that the piece is indeed authentic, and connected to comparable works produced in Paris in the twelfth century."
Source: https://nypost.com/2017/03/26/art-dealer-knocks-phony-king-david-sculpture-displayed-in-the-met/
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