you're watching dw news. here's a reminder of our top story. ukraine's president reloaded mozilla and skis an athens for adults with you in bulk and leaders the discussing, the bulk and region future relations with the block in the lights of rushes, invasion of ukraine. and that said from me and the news team, phil guy will have an update for you at the top of the thanks for the interest the global economy portfolio g w business be here's a closer look at the project. to analyze the flight for market dominance. with d w. business beyond on

may 20 is 2023. grease is called your ministry, announced the rest of the tuition of a trove of looted arts, a total of $351.00 objects were to be returned to the country. they had previously belonged to the disgraced former art dealer. robin symes, the among them is a bronze sculpture depicting the ancient macedonian ruler, alexander the great, the peace is su, spectacular. it seemed destined to go on display at the acropolis. but there was a problem archaeologist. think it's a fake. the

in the archeologist stefan lehman has spent the last 20 years researching fake antiquities . we 1st met him in 2015 when he was still working at the university of honda in germany. here he was just finalizing a catalog listing suspicious bronzes for publication. the artworks had come from austin, houses, galleries, and art dealer's many had been laundered onto the market by robin symes, the art dealer authorities also sees the alexander bust from lima and believes the bronzes are forgeries, the works of an expert forger or forgeries known in art circles as the spanish master. their identity remains a mystery to this day. the spanish master often makes bronze as of ancient rulers,

like emperor augustus. their faces are covered in a convincing path, not and so well preserved. it's almost a miracle. on this on last, the note number, a kind of vanish monster is just to make shifts name. no one knows who they are or where they're from. it's a name, i've heard a lot in the art trade. so the book, this one was an abundance auction. these head came from robin symes and was on sale in new york and the december auction. the gets involved to own this home. uh, and that was sold over the counter and then you, you can take store if you're taking the novel move on to that one was an immunity collection told to him in 2015 lean on was a professor at the university of holla. and also keeping a close eye on antiquities that came onto the market, each listed for

a considerable sum, screwed up class. price is dotted around a $1000000.00 by whitening they own on li months. research often took him to switzerland and important center of our trade. the city of bozza was then home to coast of leon and our dealer, an archaeologist, with over 40 years of experience who had sold many antiquities to international museums. in 2015 leon decided to do something unusual for an art dealer. he opened up to us about what he was seen at international auctions to this in the past, it is only a few of these pieces, a genuine ink for let's go through them quickly. right? this is a fake. as we'll see how blurry it is most called through in antiquity was like that big scoop to me. those are the kinds of

a guessing kind and no secret from antiquity looks like that. oh, those are big bulging eyes. it's a joy can that be those into closer look at the has the head always gives it away as a here. bitten by. those boxes are okay for longer all packaged things, but this is so fake, it stinks. there's no way it's all fake. and that's true, and they said to some kind of teen, none of these are antiquities that she and this is this. here's another hear this menu say with the organs bulging through the cloth, clicked this that was never done in ancient times. so it was always just need the back button as i, they've all been sort of the few genuine ones and all the facts. yeah, 047000 dollars. 83059000. that's big money. and because of the fact you might do that, everyone keeps the mouth shut. i mean, nobody says, hey, what's up, buddy? what you have there is a disaster. you've squandered your money the the

oven by 9, by at the office who i've always tried to abide by certain rules in my work. i didn't do all the things other people in my fields were doing. because i knew that at some point they would blow up in my face. the think i'm no saint, but i always kept to limit side said because i came from another side from academia, complimentary such as the in those days, leon was visiting european museums to see collections live with his expert. i,

when news suspicious ancient pieces appeared, he discussed the issue with stuff on lima, the. this is the last video we have of christoph leon. he died unexpectedly in 2017. the new york start market was also under scrutiny at that time. archaeologist oscar white mass corolla had tracked how dealers pushed their fakes onto the market. according to him, they were using galleries, art stairs, and a bundle options. the we met most corolla in 2015 in his manhattan apartment. he had been a curator at the metropolitan museum of art for many years and was known for his expertise as well as his honesty. he openly criticized the

our trade and was seen as a kind of whistle blower by one of my mentors. sherlock holmes, i have learned that both deals are flexible, some things to watch and i was just across the forgeries. i talked to a deal about this once a smiled and what they're doing, you see instead of selling it to a customer from their own shop, they don't want to sell. so what you really want yourself interest and lot of dealers don't want, don't want to sell for it. they put it up for auction on the false name for, let's say from adult collection. what it says, the, the for the nonce from an old family collection or from an old collection off of a missed your x. and there's a deal is, was selling the for what you mean watching and not being personally involved and who buys it. you're saying in america because it as so many museums is

a prime target for the sale of full address. yes. the bronze boss of alexander the great, also came from the new york art market from the gallery of dealer robin signs stuff . a name on 1st saw it in the year, 2000, not in new york, but in the town of shed. and in eastern germany, it was exhibited at the bank among museum without information on where it had come from. lima asked the museum about its prominence, but got no answers. he concluded the piece was illegitimate. either because it was looted art or because it was a fake is what all happened, younger people to find 5 was there and took a look to see what and to me it just scream, soldier resolved on. i was quite as

a donation. so i bought the catalog and found that even less convincing if i but then i more or less the groceries again, on the also, i mean there are many forgeries and even the best of us console for a fake, it can happen at the highest levels. there's nothing more to say other guy now the, if you could see that was the on test. so i publish the lecture that i gave here in holland, in the form of i'm using and booklet. and i said that in my opinion, there is no way that the pacing question is from the ancient 12 to an organ or not teachers over in the hospital and tom mt table, say, plastic arctic sound list his goals in order to, to manufacture them and internet to non constant bluff shop. noun. 14, john, you can find scouts these, the plastic, the hudson's that she wouldn't oh, school stayed in vancouver and we'll see them as like of it. and it's believe on some of this because he's the 1st to out of the faithfulness for bills as it cannot be for them. i think we have it as business obviously. so hope you'd see it as a he'll buy well, mind to face on conduct on a full i'm don't know. do you think i'm on?

because actually have to want to forgive me of those that i told her, i feel like he's gone to noon. i got along apple it says on these are fine because with him even via been fine for me to avoid it and decided it's, it's double. don't know if there's like a good leaving the for months. your boss isn't that you won't be stuck hosted them 14. got them for showing this isn't just for the cops, isn't it just the head is it is practically a bust on that being said much more and has been preserved as a downside 1000. you 2000 prizes were already quite high. it is, i'd say an original piece like this. and alexander in bronze would have gone for between 15 and 25000000 to which ones you can easily let me things by displaying the bronze of alexander the museum, gave it legitimacy, even though it was acquired through a dealer. and there was no documentation about its provenance, lima, and felt the museum was allowing itself to be used as a kind of money laundry for art. a specimen done the less to speak to scientists

and mutual fact to go down the legal route to us and see me. that was something new . i must of the same phone and in a certain way, it's a form of violence. definitely the result of this is because uh this, this whole thing divided the file that was also the intention. the lawyer for the plaintive told me that the aim was to have me removed from my post in archaeological circles for jerry is an unpopular topic. but after the trial word got around that lame on was addressing the issue publicly. and a switch collector who wished to remain anonymous simply month a bronze had to investigate. the collector had bought the piece of new york in 1993 and have doubts about whether it was genuine. the

portrait is of emperor augustus being able to examine it was a rare opportunity for layman and his colleague, fellow archaeologist henley, clara, by sending the word to lima and instead of selling it onto someone else, this was collect or risk losing a lot of money. impressive pace, if genuine, the head would be worth a good 1000000, a fake. it'd be worth little more than the material. perhaps 500 euros. so this on 0, but certainly very impressive. 15. the 1st thing you say when you see it is that it's a wonderful head and in special because there are very few bronze heads,

it will cost us, which would increase its value. so for this, i'll post post to seek to all send via that explains why for entry, so made you say, and forge was a sold all over the place. and the car step there that there's a bucket for it because museums and collect the spy. we're talking money, money, money is the underlying factor. and the reason this is the only rich people have the money to pay for it. and these rich people take get further advantage by donating it, taking a tax deduction, shooting, getting prestige. and this goes on and on and on as we're sitting here, it exists at this very moment. lima and suspected that the spanish master could have made the bronze head. his research also provides insight into the forward years market strategies.

first of our stuff as part of my stuff, the spanish most as full jury would shop thinks about which objects it will produce for the market. navea told in the ranking of ocoee logic, a lot of faxes, bronze sculpture is a number one community successor. they are very special cases to defend, so you'd expect them to attract a lot of attention. increased grimace. she has a grumpy expression. nope, the ideal we'd imagine for all gust, as you can tell, the artist is playing with the emotions to assume that it's a fantastic piece of processes in the votes of the university and how to there's a collection of plaster casts of original antiquities. these correspond exactly to the genuine ancient portraits,

lima and compared the bronze head from switzerland, with this genuine like this of emperor augustus. archaeologists call this method stylistic analysis. it's a centuries old approach, used to identify genuine works of art simply by looking at them. it takes decades of experience, a wealth of knowledge and intuition is in the office yet as you can see here, watching the official portrays of old gust as looks like the eyes on very odd. they just have a slight because we, the nose is alone and the mouth is oriented towards the vertical axis. the facial expression is very calm, with only slightly raised con tools move in slice to. there's only very light

modeling which conveys a calm, timeless face side, was diseased from it, and then we have the jacket edge at the bottom, hardly fentanyl, but allegedly toned off with great force of the associates, the tires of cooked. looking at these details, you begin to doubt whether it is a faint it's being made perfectly it's most lily. but stefan lemons,

archaeological expertise told him that the head was a fake. and having the object in hand meant he could have the material of a suspected spanish master forgery, analyzed for the very 1st time the phone, whole foot institute in phil specializes in carrying out computer tomography or c t scans. usually, the scientists here test industrial products. the disputed alexander bust couldn't be analyzed during the trial because it went missing. following the exhibition computers are a patient ready for his scan. that's good. good, now, physicist and material scientist. hi mila. we'll examine another suspected for jury . the head of augustus. this hall is essentially one giant c t scanner,

one of the most powerful in the world, the, the scan, the hard, the radiation levels are extremely high. so the scientists leave the hall and seal the doors. the, the, the analysis focuses on the bronze alloy to see if it has the characteristics of bronze created 2000 years ago. but even if it does look for jurors are believe to meltdown ancient coins and use the metal to make new hands check celebration voltage. 9 electronic balls, 9 a v which device on texas and trucking, it's a token elma detector with $200.00 micro may to pick,

so pitch pitch it came off. and now this, this quinta, from a range of the material characteristics correspond with antiquity. so we believe that this sculpture is made of genuine ancient material. natasha by side. you could find ancient metal to use for this. so okay, so we know you'll get done and using old materials for forgeries isn't an entirely new idea. using here's a whole you can see it here, but you wouldn't be able to through the crust to close the whole vin, chiseled out in a structured way. jesus law something was slotted in mindfulness and 9 capacity. yes. so you can see the edges of the insects and paste my teeth. this is my thing i know. and this material has a different density to the material surrounding it, which has a different ally, compositions. plus,

you're kind of kind of showing those who come up with a sized and carried out. metallic graphic tests on a cross section of the materials and the outer crust. the reason for one thing we determine that the corrosion, which looks very bad to the naked eye, is only on the surface and to the shoes. photo sees that leads us to conclude that this artifact was created in modern times and designed to look very old. the, the test showed the bronze sculpture of augustus to be a think the at the time, steph, i'm lima, and had uncovered 35 bronze works, suspected to be forgeries. and that number was likely to rise.

if those are for those files, most of it on the image most is woodshop, divides the labor of the seamless. so i could be wrong. that could be more, but i suspect that there are $12.00, or 3 people who get together and say, what are we going to do next? let's take these exceptional bronze portrait of a black african woman and our thoughts of that kind of in. and you have to come up with the idea 1st, the bottom of muscles, then you have to make the most cost the middle east and then begin ruining it. so making those damage marks the end of the degree to make it look ancient. and the end of this i'd so little of that requires a lot of skill falls, which is the thunder tradition, museums. and you know, means yet, museums are obviously never happy when someone calls important pieces from the major collections into question on those 2 devices. that usually also leads to interpersonal problems and trust in place. and then come out of these things,

guns and then can't be avoided of uh, i think a, a to fargo. but i think the question of whether these original ancient works, it's a full mode in full jury's skill is serious enough, but you have to look pause, things like that is clear. and vixen most as a professor at the university of honda, stephan layman was in a position to be able to freely designate expensive artworks as worthless facts. of course, the practice didn't make him many friends in the our trade or at the museums that were affected. of the fuse book about the spanish master's forgeries was published in 2015 for

the donald. how did you, ladies and gentlemen, the students welcome to these book launch at the mazda and elisa university's archaeological museum was mostly on the page either to own this. i believe scholars must respond to these challenges quickly, clearly and effectively to law. only then can we defend the foundations of val discipline from this money grabbing attack of to go to the law office up to the, to this day. it's still not clear who the spanish master is. the person or people behind the forgeries are likely still working in secret smuggling fakes onto the international art market. stuff on lima has now retired. we caught up with him again in the city of cologne. he still spends time on the topic of forgeries

ever since his book was published. fellow experts from all over the world have sent him images of suspicious bronzes, lima and says that the spanish master is slowly but surely distorting an image of antiquity. the alexander bust from the bank and museum in stand, which landed him in court and 2010 had remained missing until 2023. in my company from which is including the end of may i go to a newspaper clipping with the photo from a great call, a want to sleep through a whole he right, was contented, really be what is cooked in the i looked at the picture and so a box in the thoughts was the alexander from stand up parked to pick the articles. and the piece was from the geneva collection of the criminal dealer. robin signs of in times and just couldn't. so i think that collection was

discovered in 2006 office wrote on the other side that i, i, there was a legal dispute involving easily in greece. and then the antiquities were returns to italy and also to greece as lou to god. it's all quotes pizza or even boulder among the things returned was the alexander from stand um it is though it's now resurfaced. greece is culture ministry published the list of 351 antiquities restore to the country from the collection of robin simon's number 11 is the alexander bust. the court has now ruled that it was looted. art extend shouldn't have exhibited it without documentation about its origin, just as lima and said in 2000 lima and still believes the bronze is a forgery. he's pleased, it's turned up and hopes the material will be analyzed, does and books, and it's a great outcome. you live in

a bad wouldn't be and if we'd found out they had had been mailed to down off in this, it's more, it's a naive american, multi billionaire. i had both and even if that would have been a sensation, the closer to that we just had it and the 25th of a. but i haven't returned to a country that spectacular arguing on the island. it doesn't suspect talk with you 1st to see it increasing on time. and if i want to anything split pieces, so prestigious, it has such a smell on it that people will get in touch with the this, the, the on the slow to move. it's unlikely the authorities in athens don't know that the alexander bronze from robin symes collection is suspected of being a think after all, greece is culture minister has a doctorate in archaeology, herself. it's now up to greek authorities to make the next move and disclose to the

world the provenance of the alexander bronze the,

the, the, the, the news on the, in the note you'll see about the video that goes in the media. may google, google. i've got to be done, but again, i will stop into that and i'll give you, go on, but you, are you able to go to that? i'm jo, media, dog, comment key, more people than ever on the move world wide in such a base are nice to jump be able to use minute they can t method only, like godaddy. audio. p megs of appears in the general does our pearson minutes

useful or them was moved to the get expose go to lecture and find out about all the story info, migraines, reliable news to migrate wherever they may be, the they put the trash collection with no sorting so that's on the, this land too full of, i'm sort of trash as an clues, romania whether europe in union has come millions of euros and to a modern waste management system who is responsible for the accounts of counselors . note the controlling already told the success of.