Professional Documents
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Bi;iNC;
THIv
MONTHLY
TIAR.^
srpPLi<;\l
KX T TO
Till':
Till-;
HrRi.ixciiox
\(..\/ixi':
ior connoisseurs
oi'
i'rhv'ious
month
THK
WKITTI'N
ItY Till-
OF SAITAPHARNES
THK HUKLINGTON MAGAZINE
Paris, Mareh 30, 1903
VirOMTE
C.
Tiani of Saitaph;uiios, vvliicli was boiif,^ht by the Miisee du Louvre in 1896. now forms the principal subject of discussion and althoufjh it is, to say the least, regrettable that the mass of the f)ublic, necessarily incompetent, should suddenly ha\e taken sides for or against the authenticity of the famous ornament, may we not, on the other hand, regard as a comforting symptom the passion with which, in our day of excessive utilitarianism, a question of so high an order is being debated in every direction ? The tiara at this moment figures, of course, as an accused person but the accused, according to the most respectable and the justest traditions, and also according to law, must be held to be innocent until the verdict is delivered. The verdict alone can pronounce it guilty. An inquiry has been opened it beseems us to await its results. shall then know at least, let us hope so both its intrinsic value and the name of its maker, if there be a maker to discover I feel it to be my duty simply to relate the history of the question and to simi up the different opinions which it has called fortli.
;
:
TnH
We
matter; for an object of that importance coming from Olbia could not but raise doubts in his mind." Early in 1896, Mr. Murray, the head of the Department of Creek and Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, received a' letter from a Mr. Hochmann, from Olbia, offering him the tiara. Mr. Murray replied that, knowing as he did that Mr. Hochmann was occupied in the fabrication of antique objects of art, he was not at all interested in the " In the following year," says Mr. Murray, matter. "the same person came to London with several articles in gold and offered them to me. All were false." Mr. Murray's opinion has not altered. " I am certain that the tiara is false," he says, " but I am bound to admit that three of our most "competent experts on Egyptian and Greek antiquities have alwavs maintained its genuineness." In i8gG also, M. Laferriere, at that time a Councillor of State, sent to M. Heron de \'illefasse, .Member 01
the Institute, Keeper of Greek and
at the
Roman
Anti(]uities
I.
I-irst
Phase
Before
the
purchase
of the
tiara
by the
Louvre
end of 1895 that Dr. von Schneider, Professor at the University of \'ienna and Director of the Museum of .-\nti<]uities, first saw and held in his hands the Tiara of Saitapharnes. His first impression was an overwhelming one "At the first sight, the want of harmony offered by the fashioning (' die Formgebung ) of each of the parts displeased me, and I received the distinct impression of an imitation.'" Plu' next day, Herr von Schneider brought together two nrcha-ologists and an artist, " all three men of ripe judgement and great experience," in whom he had " the same confidence to-day that he had then." All three, whether prompted bj- archaeological reasons or technical motives, declared the tiara to be authentic. Herr von Schneider was not convinced, and refused tc countenance the purchase of the tiara by the
It
was
at the
Louvre, two merchants who wished to sell two separate ornaments which had been discovered, the\said, in the exca\ations in the south of the Crimea. They asked 200,000 fr. The articles appeared, on examination, to be genuine and fine. Messrs. Theodore Reinach and Corroyer placed the sum mentioned at the disposal of the Louvre, which thus became the possessor of the Tiara of Saitapharnes.
Second Phase
The
First Controversies
1896, the authenticity of the tiara violently contested by a German savant of indisputable worth, Herr Furtwiingler, who published in the Cosinopolis review a passionate
I,
On
August
Imperial Museum. .\bout the same time. Count Michael von Tyskiewicz, the well-known collector, received a letter from \ienna proposing that he should buy the Olbia tiara together with the necklace. The writer, whose signature was illegible, asked Count von Tyskiewicz to give him an appointment, by telegram, either at X'eiiice or Milan, in order that he might see the The Count was unable to decipher the originals. address and could not send a reply but he wrote later that, if he had been able to answer, he would "certainlv have refused to take anv trouble in the
;
.
article, in which he enumerated his objections. The chief of these were concerned with the Greek inscription in epigraphic characters. In the September number, M. de N'illefasse replied to Herr Furtwiingler, and M. Collignon summed up the whole discussion that had been raised in the Recueil Piot, Vol. \'I. I must also mention the works.of Messrs. P. Foucart and Hollcaux, two eminent epigraphists, who replied to the criticisms levelled against the tiara in the report of the Academy of Inscriptions, August 7. i8g6, and in the Revue Archeolo<^ique, \'ol. XXIX, pp. 158-171. On the other hand, on August 2 of the same year, at the Tenth Archaeological Congress at Riga, in Russia, M. Ernest de Stern, Director of the Odessa Museum, read a report on the Tiara of Saitapharnes, " As the result in which he disputed its genuineness. of various considerations," he wrote later, " I had
become convinced that the tiaro in the Louvre was the masterpiece of a laboratory of forgers." .And here M. tie Stern alluded to the firm of Hochmann of Otehakoff. or Olbia. M. de Stern declared that his
I. April, 1903
Januarj' 1897 ^^- Thiebault-Sisson was at Petersburg and made the acquaintance of the Assistant-Keeper of the Hermitage Museum, M. Wesselowski, who, in the course of an interview, instructed him on the subject of the tiara in question. M. \A'esselowski ended his argument with these words " Where was the tiara made ? I do not hesitate to
In
St,
:
reply,
'
In Russia.'
Was
it
made by Rachoumowski
or
another ? Does it come from a workshop at Odessa or from Otchakoff, the two centres for the fabrication of false gold ornaments ? It matters little." It would seem, however, as though the point did matter, since, several years later, the question suddenlv burst out anew in broad daylight, and bore precisely upon the presumptive authors of the Tiara of Saitapiiarnes.
(hic^lion in
March 1903
mhihc tion with a Pille forgery March igo in which he was unplu atcd. a certain M. MayenceElina declared himself the maker of the too illustrious tiara. To advance the statement was easy to pro\-e it was more difficult. For some days the press was
111
i
inundated with letters and interviews with M. Elina. Needless to say that the most barefaced lies came to contradict one another, and that, after the first shock caused by this bold declaration, public opinion recovered itself and obliged M. Elina to come forward as an amiable mystery-monger. All those whom he had accused easil}- proved the falseness of all his allegations, and the vevy dead spoke for. M. Elina having dragged the name of M. Spitzer into the business of the tiara, the Baron Coche. M. Spitzer's son-in-law, contented himself with pro\ing
literally
;
M. Salomon Reinach had even made fruitless endeavours to find M. Rachoumowski at Odessa, when the latter sent to the Journal des Dcbats the follow ing note, which was published on October 3, 1897
:
" No. 4,009 of your valued paper contains an extract from an article by M. de Stern, in which he says that antiquities are manufactured in my workshop. I must give a categorical denial to this assertion.
' '
M. de Stern did, in fact, come here and displayed an in my work. I showed him a skeleton in miniature, in gold, which I have executed for the approaching International Exhibition in Paris; but I do not know what anticiue models M. de Stern can have seen at my place. The honourable Director of the Museum probably took for antiquities some little miniature figures which were to serve forseals. However greatly, therefore, I ought to be flattered by the singular advertisement which M. de Stern has given me, and by his thought of declaring mu to be tlic author of the celebrated tiara, I must deidine this
interest
unmerited honour.
(Signed)
"J. Rachol-mowski,
'
l-:ngrav.'r."
fact,
I
did nothing to
IX and X, emanatingfrom M.de Stern and M. Salomon Kiiuach. But I will reserve these for later mention.
L' Anthropologic,
\'ols.
that his father-in-law had died on April 2^. 1890, fi\e j-ears before the Odyssey of the tiara. M. Salomon Reinach, one of the scholars who do France the greatest honour, had at once scented a fraud, and, in an interview published on March 24 by the Temps, he spoke of M. Elina as " a facetious Karj, who was not a bad hand at a farce." On the 27th, M. Elina fuUyjustified M. Salomon Reinach's appreciation by declaring in a public letter that all that he had said touching the fabrication of the piece was an invention, and that he intended to put an end to the jokt' " I hope," he concluded. " that I shall not be blamed too se\-erely for emiiloying this means of serving [? ? ?J the farce-writers and thr writers of revues de fin d'annee." The imaginative Elina disappeared, but the hypothetical Rachoumowski reappeared and gradually emerged from the clouds in which he had been pleased After the disturbance till then to wrap himself. caused by Elina's pseudo-re\elations, the Louvre press had this time taken the became uneasy. The matter <jf the tiara seriously it was necessary that Moreover, a friend something should be done. of .M. Rachoumowski, living in Paris, M. K. Lifschitz, wrote to the Matin to declare that he had often seen his friend, at frequent intervals, working in his shop in Odessa at the famous tiara. A violinist of Danish birth, Madam,- Malkiiie, corroborated what M. Lifschitz had said, and dcland that she had heard M. Rachoumowski speak, tluve months ago. -of a work bv himself wln.li lu- knew t.i
;
rill'
llAKA ol
.\irAi'ii.\K.\i-:s
be preserved
inability to
in
in
tlu-
Musee du Louvre,
luul
of his
have himself recognized as the author." Lastly, the Fi^iuro. having begged one of its friends to ask the artist himself for a categorical reply, received the following telegram " Odessa, March 5.
thorough as possible, and the Minister has given him full powers to receive all informations and depositions
Odessa
" Israel Kacliouuunvski, engraver, living at j6, Street, Odessa, categorically declares He states that himself to be the author of the tiara. he executed it in 1896, to the order of a person who came from Kertch. Kachoumowski offers to go to Paris if he is given 1,200 fr."
Ouspenskaia
M. in order to make manifest the truth. - Ganneau well known to the learned is public for his admirable expert reports on the false Moabitc pottery in the Berlin Museum and on the forged manuscript of the Hible which was bought by the British Museum some fifteen jears ago and which
necessarv
Clermont
was
I
easil}'
proved to be
false."
would add that I believe that the i,joo fr. demanded by M. Kachoumowski were sent by telegraph two days ago. The journey from Odessa to Paris
Let us "hope that the Kussian takes thirty-six hours. engraver will cover the distance in less than a year.
II.
I
Kiinarli, on
receipt of
:
this telegram, found the key of the situation things are becoming interesting," he said.
Now
Till-;
SIATK
in
i)K
oriMoN
to
come
Well, we must send for this Kachoumowski. He must here, not with his affirmations and his protestations, but with his models, his designs, his moulds, which will be unexceptionable witnesses. Then we
'
have him cross-examined by archaiologists, b\epigraphists, by goldsmiths, and we shall get to the bottom of his business." This would, in fact, be the surest nuans of proshall
ceeding to an definitive inquiry. The inquiry has, indeed, begun. The Tiara of Saitapharnes has been withdrawn from the public In the Senate, M. gallery and placed under seal. Chaumie, the Minister of Fine Arts, has summed up the question as follows:
'
When
this object
for
the tiara
it
Committee
Purchases,
The as authentic sidered, at that committee included men of considerable scientific (Hear, disinterestedness. celebrity and of absolute
moment,
.
.
a fact that some protests appeared in the and there is nothing to be surprised at in this; for, really, if we were to depri\e the archseologists of the right of discussion on epigraphical matters, we should be removing them, to a great extent, from the most estimable occupation in which it is their mission to indulge. (Laughter.) Nevertheless, a calm seemed to have set in until now, when a debate has been
hear.)
It is
reviews,
favour of either of the dream of taking opinions that are dividing the most illustrious savants that it is a matter of I confess even in Europe. regret to me to see the newspapers seizing upon and discussing from day to day the genuineness of an object the appraising of which falls within the domain of Science and not of the Press. I should be sorry to see controversial questions of this kind find a home in the " dailies." They are out of place there. The tone of a scientific discussion inevitably becomes lowered when it is carried on in the newspaper press, and the width of the subject is narrowed down to points of details, to minutia: which either are incomprehensible, or else lend themselves too easily to misThe eagerness of the reporter, his interpretation. haste to be well ahead of his rivals, and his tendency to imagine that he has understood, grasped, and all these combine to retained all that is said to him give an equivocal and painful appearance to a discusTruth could never come out of a sion of this sort. Be this well so filled up with ''latest intelligence." as it may, I must here summarize the different aspects
:
of the discussion.
raised
in
.
the
.
Press
.
The
Louvre
came
to
me and
said,
have latel\- come to light have caused a doubt in our minds.' I thought that, so soon as a doubt arose in the mind of the administration regarding an object installed in our ni-.tional collections, our first duty was to withdraw that object. This w\is done 1 have ordered an inwithout delay. (Hear, hear.) quiry; it will be conducted with absolute strictness. men who honourable The very distinguished and believed most firmly in the authenticity are those who most eagerly desire that an absolute light should be thrown upon the matter. The public shall be fully I ask only informed; it shall learn the whole truth.
ticulars that
According to M. Wesselowski, of whom M. Thiebault-Sisson has constituted himself the interpreter, the Tiara of Saitapharnes has against it that it comes from Olbia, from Odessa, from Russia, from the South of Kussia, where, as everybody knows, the laboratories Here is a more than of the forgers are at work. But, if we examine doubtful origin to begin with. the tiara, we see that its subjects are copied from various authentic objects, such as the silver vase of Nicopolis, the stone signed Dexamenos of Chios, etc. The two large central subjects have the shape and the two friezes are features of a good Kussian moujik purely Byzantine the inscriptions are in relief, whereas all the inscriptions on Greek gold objects are in intaglio.
; ;
that
it
maybe
official
An
given the necessary time. (Hear, hear.)" note has since been issued, and I give
Lastly, the epigraphy is more than defective and is at variance with the turns of Greek grammar. The labours of Messrs. Foucart and HoUeaux, as regards the epigraphy, and of Messrs. Heron de \'illefosse, CoUignon and Theodore Keinach, as re-
in full
Minister of Public Instruction has ordered M. C'lermont-Ganneau, Member of the Institute and Professor at the College of I-" ranee, to hold an inquiry and make a report on the subject of the genuineness The incjuiry will be as of the Tiara of Saitapharnes.
"The
gards the arch;eology. refute M. Wesselowski's asserM. Theodore Keinach, in two letters published tions. by the Tciiif>s, calls intention to the fact that Herr I-'urtwiingler, a sworn enemy of the tiara if ever one
li\ed,
wrote
in
Cosnwpulis
frie/es
"are
borrowed
from
alreadv known. It has been formally prosed to him that this is not so. " On the other hand, there remain four grave reasons for suspicion " I. The tiara came from a house at Otchakoft
:
articles
fame it comes from a shop where forgeries are manufactured; and most of its detractors at first refused even to look at it, knowing whence it came Messrs.
; :
Furtwangler, von Tyskiewicz, Murra\-, \on Schneider, Berthier de La Garde, de Stern, etc. I think it may be interesting to quote here the most important passages from the article published by ^L Salomon Reinach in 1898 in L'Anthropolo'ne (Vol. IX, p. 715)
:
" In reality, the question raised by the Tiara of Saitapharnes is one of the most difficult and interesting that have ever invoked the criticism of the archreologists. Among those whose names carry weight, Herr Furtwangler is still the only one who, after seeing it, declared it to be false but, however great may be the errors with which he accompanied the account of his opinion (first in Cosinopolis, and then in a work entitled Intcrmczd), the doubt once awakened by a connoisseur of his attainments was naturally bound to spread. We can surely neglect the writings of certain persons who have done nothing more than add police evidence to the arguments of Herr Furtwangler but no archaeologist has the right to slumber on the pillow of certainty so long as Herr Furtwangler, whose
; ;
stated provenance, Olbia, has long been a repository of the most suspicious goods (see the late Count Tyskiewicz' account in the Revue Archcologiquc, 1897, II, p. i6g) " 3. It is difficult to explain to oneself how an article of this importance can have been discovered without giving the alert to the collectors or the archaeologists of the district " 4. The style of the tiara seems harder than that of analogous objects discovered at Olbia and preserved in the Hermitage Museum. " I mention this last argument, of which I have been told by serious people, with all reserve, as I have never myself visited the St. Petersburg Museum. Its force, however, is decreased by the fact that M. de Kieseritzky, the Keeper of the Archfeological Museum of the Hermitage, having long examined and studied the tiara, pronounced formall}' in favour of its genuineness. " Unfortunately and this strangely complicates the affair the Tiara of Saitapharnes also has its secret dossier.' I am able, however, without betraying confidences, to assist the reader to form an idea of what that dossier consists. " Both before and after the purchase of the tiara by the Louvre, different museums and collectors were asked to buy wonderful gold ornaments, some of them furnished with inscriptions, which were said to come from Olbia. Now these are all false they swarm with archaeological solecisms and the incorrectness of their inscriptions is grotesque. But several of them present such striking analogies either of decoration or of style with the tiara that we are obliged to choose between these two hypotheses " I. Either the tiara of the Louvre is an original piece, secretly discovered some twelve or more years ago, which first served as a model to a laboratory of forgers who tried to put imitations on the market before disposing of the original " 2. Or else the tiara of the Louvre is the masterpiece of that laboratory which has produced nothing but almost ridiculous booby-traps before and since. " One feels the unlikehood of this latter hypothesis.
;
;
The
'
who were
once
remarkable
competence
is
sufficiently
known,
persists
in
his
archaeologists, excellent epigraphists, who found themselves rewarded for their talents by an unhoped-for success, and who have since flooded the market with
opinion.* Arguments against genuineness, derived from the object itself, there are none. The inscription is irreproachable (this has been proved by Messrs.
Foucart and Holleaux) thcadjustmcntof the draperies of the figures, the thousand archjeoiogical details which so extensive a decoration admits of, escape all
;
serious criticism.
"Herr Furtwangler
the episodes
at
first
maintainctl
that
all
were
that he had boon deceived. It is impossuppose thai he would voluntarily persevere in an error
mj
nothing but fnkfis,' postichcs, screaming forgeries, fit to be sold some day or other by the weight of the metal, the considerable work of the goldsmith counting for nothing. How can one explain so pitiful a deterioration instead of the progress that was to be expected ? " It is easy for me to point all this out in general terms, but the reader who has not seen the articles ill <]iicstioii must take my word for it. That is what I call the 'secret dossier of the tiara." " This state of things will last until the forgeries have been melted down or bought which I dare not hope by sonic public collection. So long as they
' .
.
'ICTURli
belong to private persons, we shall have to rcsij,'n ourselves to silence or be content to work a few individual conversions behind closed doors. ".1/ the present moment, I think that no archaologist
. . .
SALES
them all. It is easy to gather from the foregoing how numerous and varied the opinions have been. .Many who were most positive in 1896 modified their views in Many of them agree with Mr. Murray in pro1897.
nouncing certain portions of the tiara to be genuine. .M. Charles Ravoisson Mollien is " not certain of the authenticity, but believes the Hellenism of the best portions to be ver\' probable." This is not the view taken by M. Salomon Reinach, who has been good enough to give me an interview.
on the subject of the tiara. He must weigh the arguments for and against, studv if he have the time the gold work of the south Learned Europe forms an wait of Russia, and ever-accessible tribunal, which needs no official convocation in order to have a new fact brought before it."
hiis the
is
have summar-
argument, perfect
dialectics.
(\'ol.
X^, in
and perfect in its may note, however, that in L'A nthropologic 1899, M. de Stern replied to M. Salomon
in its impartiality
letter, relied
distinguished Russian scholar, in his on a law-suit brought in Odessa, in i<S97, by M. Souroutchane, a well-known collector, against Schupsel Hochmann, of Otchakoff, the man who sold Two of the pieces in litigathe tiara to the Louvre. tion were said to have been incited down by order of M. Kachoumowski. But this sentence in M. de Stern's " It was imposreport of the case is worthy of note
Kcinach.
The
ized above, has not changed; either the tiara is entirely false, or else the tiara is completely genuine. M. Reinach is awaiting the arrival of M. RachoumowThat is where, ski. Let us, then, await it with him. at this moment, lies the actual interest of the (juestion to-do, and to the utterrise so much to that has given
Has it not, in fact, ing of so much nonsense. asserted, amid other absurdities betraying an rance of all geographical ideas, that the discovery forgery would cause criminal proceedings to be
been
ignoof the
sible for
matter
me to come to a definite conclusion in this ." of the tiara] In the same volume of L'Anthropologie, M. Salomon Reinach replied to M. de Stern, and discharged this Parthian bolt at him by the way
:
"
articles in gold,
manu-
have to bear the Government The tiara of the Louvre] bears no stamp. 5tamp. If he is so persuaded of its falseness, why does he not cause proceedings to be instituted in this connection against the vendor, who would be guilty of avoiding "' the fiscal formality of the stamping?
factured
Russia,
taken Now the Statute of against the Russian engraver? Limitations runs, and M. Rachoumowski can come to and, perhaps, without reproach. Paris without fear But there is a lesson to be derived from the " affair of the tiara." It crops up unsought for, and a most interesting article could be written on forgers and must beware, however, forgeries in art matters. lest, after being at one time too confident, we proceed to the other extreme and end by denouncing the " Gioconda" or the " Lesson in Anatomy."^ Rachoumowski arApril 6 (by telegram). P.S. He will be examined at once by rived yesterday. M. Clermt)nt-Ganneau, and we shall probably not have long to wait for a definite pronouncement.
We
It
folio
in that case
majority of cases most unlikely, except the event of a severe financial crisis or an unforeseen He, therefore, who would seek unsocial change. familiar masterpieces on the ever-changing walls of the sale-room, must perforce in the meantime be satisfied wnth the crumbs left over from the great feasts of and, if he be at all fastidious as to the qualthe past itv of those very crumbs, he can have found but little
in the great
in
;
during the
No
last few months to satisfy his appetite. great collection, no single isolated chef d'auvre,
;
memories as landmarks in the history of art. But no single work has yet appeared in any London
sale-room of sufticient beauty to e.xcite the enthusiasm of art-lovers, or of sufficient artistic interest to arouse the controversial spirit of the critics. Paintings of the highest standard are daily becoming rarer in the market. The greatest works of the old masters, such as ha\ e not found a permanent resting-place in a national museum; the finest portraitsof the Early English School, apart from those held fast in the grip of an aristocratic the most perfect productions of the I'rench entail landscape masters of i8jO, have now been absorbetl into the collections of the e.xtremely wealthy on both Their release in the near future sides of the .Atlantic.
;
but the connoisseur who visited has come forward Christie's during the few days preceding February 21 can but have been pleased with the charming small collection of " cabinet " ])ictures the property of Here was a modest the late Lady Page Turner. gathering of some fifty works, pointings and drawings, of the Dutch and French Schools, with over a dozen productions of a single Italian painter, F. Guardi. The charm of this collection was due to the evident care and knowledge with which each item had been selected. It was clearly apparent that Sir Edward Page Turner, when he purchased his works of art between the years 1858 and 1873, did not do so because they were fashionable, or because walls must be covered, but because he loved and understood the masters with whose creations he elected to live. The fact that a