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on may. 20 is 2023. greece is culture ministry announced the restitution of a trove of looted art. a total of $351.00 objects were to be returned to the country. they had previously belonged to the disgraced former art dealer. robin simes, the among them is a bronze sculpture depicting the ancient macedonian ruler, alexander the great, the peace is su, spectacular. did it seem destined to go on display at the acropolis? but there's a problem archaeologist. think it's a fake. the

on 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 holler in germany. here he was just finalizing a catalog listing suspicious bronzes for publication. the artworks had come from auction 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 ford. yours known in art circles as the spanish master. their identity remains

a mystery to this day. the spanish master often makes bronze is of age and rulers, like emperor augustus. their faces are covered in a convincing path now and so well preserved. it's almost a miracle problem so much the note number 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 trade of type on the police. one was an abundance auction. this head came from reuben signs 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 a loud enough all move on to that one was in the munich auction, all to one in 2015 lehman 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. what the price price is, don says around a 1000000 by whitening they own on the 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 and 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,

no scope through in antiquity was like that a big scoop to meet those kinds of a guessing kind at no secret from antiquity looks like that. ok, with those big bulging eyes, it's a joy that he does. indeed, closer look at the has the head always gives it away as a here, but and by those boxes are okay. so i don't know if i can stink, but this is so fake. it stinks. there's no way it's all fake. and that's true. and they said to china, and none of these are antiquities that she and izzy, this is another here, does manage with the organ bulging through the cloth. this is, that was never done in ancient times. it was always to sneak about buttons as i, they've all been saw, the few genuine ones and all the facts. yes. name of $47000.00. 83059000. that's big money. and because of the fact you might do that, everyone keeps the mouth shut and 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 field were doing. because i knew that at some point it would blow up in my face the the think i'm no saint, but i always kept to limit side set because i came from another side from academia, come from that isn't just in those days,

leon was visiting european museums to see collections live with his expert, i, when knew, suspicious ancient pieces appeared to discuss 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 art market was also under scrutiny at that time. archaeologist oscar white must corolla had tracked how dealers pushed their stakes onto the market. according to him, they were using galleries arts. there's other bundle options. the we met must karema 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 criticize 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 inflexible, sent things to watch and officers progressed at forgeries. i talked to a deal about this one's a smiled and what they're doing is say, instead of selling it to a customer from their own shop, they don't want to sell for widget. we don't want their self interest, and lot of dealers don't want, don't want the self warranty. they put it up for auction on the false name for, let's say, from adult collection. when it says the, the provenance from an old family collection or from an old collection off of, from mr. 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 an

american because it has so many museums is a prime target for the sale of full address. yes. the bronze bust of alexander, the great, also came from the new york art market, from the gallery of dealer robins signs stuff on lima. and 1st saw it in the year, 2000, not in new york, but in the town of shed and uh, in eastern germany. it was exhibited at the bank of mind 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. what all happened, you on google. compute the search, find 5, was there and took

a look to see when to me it just scream soldier loft 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 level. there's nothing more to say other guy now, but if you could see that was the own 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 and say plastic optics on those dis, goals in order to fade from an internet to non includes 10 lemma shop noun. 14 john, you can find scouts these, the plastic, the husbands, that she wouldn't oh, school stayed in thinking about and we'll see you as like of it and just move on some of this because he's the 1st to st. oh, effect forms for both of us you cannot be photo mining we call,

but especially if i place the hope you'd see it because i feel like, well, my new face from kind of on a full i'm going is that, do you think your mind? cuz that for us doing so forgive me of those to i to, to ask you, what are these kinda noon? i'm got along of what it says on. these are fine because with them you can be able to find somebody to avoid it and decide it's it's, it's double. don't know if there's like a good leaving the for mind to ship also, isn't that so you won't be stuck else to them? 14. got them for short, and this isn't just for the cops. it's not just the head. so 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, right. and alexander in bronze would have gone full between 15 and 25000000 to once once the 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 english speak, the scientists and miss all fucked to go down the legal route to us and see me. that was something new. i must the same on monday in a certain way. it's a form of violence definitely with this other. this is give us a, give us a form for and provide 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, forgery as 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, sent lima a bronze, had to investigate. the collector had bought the piece in new york in 1993. i have doubts about whether it was genuine.

the portrait is the emperor augustus. being able to examine it was a rare opportunity for layman and his colleague, fellow archaeologist, and lake leah by sending the word to lima instead of selling it onto someone else. this was collect or risk losing a lot of money. interesting pace. if genuine, the head would be worth a good 1000000, a fake. it'd be worth little more than the material, perhaps $500.00 euros. successful. and certainly very impressive. the 1st thing you say when you see it is that it's

a wonderful head of ended special because there are very few bronze hazel gases which would increase its value. so for this, i'll post post to see if to all, so that explains why for interest. i made you say, and for what was a sold all over the place and the car step there that there's a market for because museums and collect despite 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 best people to get further advantage by donating it, taking a tax deduction and 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 i've asked that his father from last us the spanish most as forgery, woodshop thinks about which objects it will produce for the market. navea told in the ranking of ocoee a logical loss of facts, bronze sculpture as a number one queen the successor. they're very special pieces to these trends, so you'd expect them to attract a lot of attention. please christmas. he has a grumpy expression. nope, the ideal we'd imagine for all gust, as you can tell, the artist is playing with the motions to assume that it's a fantastic piece by processors 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 here this you can see here what's an official portrayed civil gas. this looks like the eyes on very opposite. they just have a slight cuz we, the nose is alone and the mouth is oriented towards the vertical axis. the facial expression is very calm,

with only slightly raised comfortable as we move and slice to. there's only very light modeling which conveys a calm, timeless face side, was because the funny thing a little bit. and then we have the jacket edge at the bottom of the bench at all, but allegedly turn off with great force and the associate, 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 definitely 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 for institute in philip 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 when i go back to computers or 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 analysis focuses on the bronze aloe a 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, 90 v. which device on texas and trucking. it's

a tucking element detector with 200 micro may to pick. so pitch pitch it came dolphin. now this test of quinta, from a range of the material characteristics correspond with antiquity. so we believe that this sculpture is made of genuine ancient material. i took my tire by side, you could find ancient metal to use for this. so okay, so we know you'll get done as 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 holes, going chiseled out in a structured way. these are slow, something was slotted in mindfulness and 9 capacity. yes. so you can see the edges of the insect 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 alley compositions. plus, you're kind of kind of showing those who come up with a sized carried out and metallic graphic tests and 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. so this, these 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 fake, the at the time, step on lima and had uncovered $35.00 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 workshop, divides the labor of a few minutes. so and 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 i felt awfully kind of in a do you have to come up with the idea 1st of all, then you have to make the most cost the middle east and then begin ruining it. so making those damage marks and the degree to make it look ancient. and this of this, i'd so little of that requires a lot of skill should force which is the thunder to these 2 museums. and your means, your museums are obviously never happy when someone calls impulse and pieces from the major collections into question on those 2 devices. that usually also leads to

interpersonal problems and justice in place and then come isaacson's guns and then can't be avoided of uh, i think it's a part of but i think the question of whether these are original ancient works. it's a full modem forgeries, and this is serious enough, but you have to look pos, things like that, excuse me, and bricks. in most as a professor at the university of honda, stephan lima 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 masters 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 lisa 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 multiple 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 fix 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 our 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 for me, which is including the end of may i go to a newspaper clipping with a photo from a great call, a want to sleep through a whole he right was contented. really be what is cooked in was uh, i looked at the picture and saw a box in the thoughts was the alexander from stand up parked to take the articles. and the page was from the geneva collection of the criminal of

the little roman signs of inside and just couldn't. so i think that collection was discovered in 2006 office wrote on the other side the next time there was a legal dispute involving easily in greece. and then the antiquities were returned to italy and also to grace as lucy dogs. it's all queens pizza, or even golden among the things returned was the alexander from stand um it is so it's now resurfaced greece is culture ministry published the list of $351.00 antiquities restore to the country from the collection of robin symes. 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 to some books and it's a great how come you live in a bad wouldn't be. and if we'd found out they had had the meltdown off in this, it's more, it's a naive american, multi billionaire. i had both it even if that would have been a sensation. the closer to that would just have been to the tune script of. but i haven't returned to a country that spectacular ongoing a lot and a dozen a spectacle. yeah. first to see it in his inclusion on times that i didn't know if it was something i wouldn't do anything to split pieces. so prestigious. it has such a smell on it that people will get in touch. cool. um that this the and 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 providence, the alexander bronze the,

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