$69 [Music] million gentl here 699 71 mil auction houses usually care only about what goes over the counter what makes money and both genuine and fake goods go over the counter there is no difference [Music] they throw their ethical principles overboard as long as it sells anyone here 93 minut last [Music] chance [Applause] Nick B at95 [Music] M these bronze heads are from auction houses Galleries and art dealers they all have one thing in common Arch ologist Stefan lemman reckons their fakes the work of a mystery super forger known in German art circles as the Spanish Master no one knows who he is but lemon is on his Trail Spanish Master the Spanish Master is a makeshift name nobody knows exactly what it's supposed to mean or where it comes from I've heard the expression used in the art trade in general my recently met an archaeologist who claimed to have coined the expression because he knows a forger from Spain when I asked him for his name he said oh I can't think of it right now Layman ascribes these portraits of ancient rulers to the forger Augustus Caesar Alexander the Great all the sculptures have a common attribute an emotional facial expression which is actually not typical of classical Antiquity they're always bronze heads which are in especially high demand among art collectors this one was put up for auction at Bonhams this is one of the heads that was offered in New York by Robin Sims in the December auction this was acquired conventionally over the counter in a New York antique shop this one was put up for auction in Munich this one's been sold several times it's already got quite a history today it's in the possession of a foundation in Geneva in a museum as far as I know this one is in Geneva too lemman is a professor at Martin Luther University in Hal from his office the bin born expert researches the Art Market and finds so many heads he considers dubious that he has to shake his look this one's still on offer approximately 250 ad Price upon request of course price of n is CL the price well it starts at about a million as an art dealer for 40 years Kristoff leyon sold many major pieces of ancient art to International museums he made a decision that's unusual for an art dealer he wants to talk about his observations in the ancient art trade he shows us the catalog of an international auction house that sold off a collection only a few pieces are genuine let's go through them quickly this one is so fake it stinks look it's so blurred a sculptor in Antiquity would never have done that you can forget it no ancient sculpture ever looked like that with these eyes these big bulgy eyes this one's ridiculous you can tell by the hair the hair always gives the game away the vases are okay we won't waste our time on them this is so fake it stinks this one's impossible it's all rubbish this one here twoo none of them are Antiquities here's another one with a male member bulging through the cloth that was never done in ancient times it all got sold the few genuine works and all the forgeries $47,000 $83,000 59,000 that's big money everybody keeps tight lipped and says nothing no one goes and says careful my friend what you have here is a disaster you wasted your money Leon says up to 50% of all antiques sold at auction are fakes it's an incredible figure high above Manhattan the experienced American archaeologist Oscar white muscarella watches the art trade he worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a curator for many years and is a renowned expert he's considered the good conscience of archaeology because he doesn't mince his words you could say he's a kind of whistleblower by one of my mentors here charlock Holmes I have learned that both dealers and collectors will send things to auction houses because they're forgeries I talked to a deal about this once and he 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 for Wes we don't want to sell for wedges and a lot of dealers don't want don't want to sell for wedges they put it up for auction under a false name or it'll say from an old collection when it says the the provenance from an old family collection or from an old collection or from missure X and these are dealers who are selling the forgan auction and not being personally involved in who buys it you see in America because it has so many museums is a prime target for the sale of forgeries [Music] yes New York may seem far away but the international trade has made its way to provincial Eastern Germany too as Stefan Layman experienced personally this bronze bust of Alexander the Great was presented at the vinman Museum in stendal in Saxony anhalt in the year 2000 later it emerged that the bust had belonged to the London art dealer Robin Sims Stefan lemman attributes the bust to the Spanish Master whose style he recognizes in it the Special appearance of the edges where it was supposedly broken in ancient times an evenly spread patina the face completely preserved as if by Magic lemman went public with the news that the museum was displaying the bust without clear details of its [Music] Provence I was there and I took a look at it and to me it was crying out that it was a forgery I was quite astonished so I bought the catalog and I found that even less convincing I mean there are many forgeries and even the best of us can fall for a fake there's nothing more to say so I published the lecture which I gave here in Hal in the form of a museum booklet and expressed my own view that in my opinion it's out of the question that the piece under consideration is from the ancient world anent bronze bust of Alexander the Great or a well-made forgery by International AR dealer Mafia 10 years ago this sculp was considered a sensation displayed at the velman Museum allegedly on loan from a private collector but the accusations that it's a fake go back a long way I'm still of the same opinion as stated in an academic publication that we are dealing with a forgery here the Vinland Society however accused him of Lial and sued was this simply a scholarly dispute or an archaeological scandle to avoid a lengthy trial a mediator was hired but meanwhile the reported bronze sensation has been missing since the exhibition 10 years ago to go down the legal route in suei that was a new departure I must say and in a certain way it's a form of [Music] violence that was also the intention the lawyer for the plaintiff told me the aim was to get me removed from my post eventually the trial ended at the Berlin Regional Court with a settlement the details of which both parties have agreed to keep secret but instead of shutting Layman up the trial spurred him on to carry out more research forgeries are an unpopular Topic in archaeological circles lemman is one of the few archaeologists who address it publicly and word has got around today he's looking at a new case a Swiss collector who wishes to remain anonymous bought a bronze head in New York but then started having doubts about whether it was genuine usually Layman looks for bronze heads at art fairs and in museums Galleries and auction catalogs now for the first time a possible work by the Spanish Master is on his very own desk it's a portrait of Augustus Caesar it's a stroke of luck for lemman and his colleague Henrik lur who's also an archaeologist the Swiss collector says lemman could have sold the head on and is now risking the loss of a good million euros impressive piece if the head turns out to be a forgery it will be immediately worthless certainly very impressive you look at it and the first thing you say is It's a Wonderful head it's also spectacular because there are very few bronze heads of Augustus that also increases its [Music] value prices for works of ancient art have risen rapidly in recent years is many people looking for a safe investment buy works of art Stefan Layman believes the stock markets and the trade in Antiquities are [Music] linked of course it's something you can easily explain with the new era after 1989 when there was a whole new market of billionaires oil billionaires the stock markets went crazy people earned quick money and now there are very many people with almost inconceivable amounts of money and one of the Investments recommended by Banks is antiques paintings and works of ancient art the Spanish master and his Circle tried to help by meeting Market man with forgeries that explains why forgies are made you see and fores are sold all over the place you see uh and because there there there's a market for it because museums and collectors bu it we're talking money money money is the underlining factor and the reason this is done because only rich people have the money to pay for it uh and these rich people take get further Advantage by donating it taking a tax deduction you and getting Prestige see and this goes on and on and on as we're sitting here it exists at this very moment so the trade in Antiquities is obviously a wash with forgeries according to Oscar muscarella surprisingly many experts in German museums and universities know about it too but it's frowned upon to write expert opinions for the the art trade because of concerns that in addition to forgeries there's a lot of looted art on the market Marcos Hilgard who heads one of the sections of Berlin's pamon museum has barred his staff from writing expert opinions on Antiquities for the art trade on the one hand you have those who say we have to document illegally export works for Academia so that the knowledge does not get lost and on the other hand you have those who say that by writing expert opinions you raise the value of a work of art and make it even more profitable and that is also my personal opinion I decided that we could not and should not write any more evaluations because the experts are the ones who assess an item and give it its value with their assessment Kristoff Leon was an art dealer for many years and has a doctorate in archaeology we joined him on his way to France a museum there is allegedly exhibiting several heads of dubious provenance including some Works ascribable to the Spanish [Music] master Leon has known the archaeologist Stefan lemman from Hala for many years whenever works from Antiquity show up that appear suspicious they exchange views and information Leon says the market for forgeries has been booming for several years now as an art dealer he personally experienced the developments on the Art Market for 40 years [Music] I spent four years at Baron University until 1970 and then barowski one of the biggest dealers in Antiquities at the time asked me to join him in Basel we worked together for a year and a half and then I set up my own business I've been an art dealer ever since but I never really left Academia [Music] over the years I've always tried to stay within certain rules of the game I did not do all the things people around me were doing back then because I knew it would backfire sooner or later I'm no saint but I put limits on myself from the word go because I came from a different side I came from Academia [Music] meanwhile in Hal Stevan lman continues to examine the bronze head from the New York Art Market his research has also exposed the market strategies adopted by the alleged forger you first the Spanish Masters forgery Workshop naturally thinks about images it can produce for the market in the ranking of archaeological objects bronze sculptures are number one there's something very special and we can expect them to attract great attention he has a grumpy expression rather than the ideal one we imagin for Augustus you can tell that the art artist is playing with emotions a little bit but it's a fantastic piece [Music] Fant Stefan lemman also heads the archaeological Museum belonging to the university in Hal its stor rooms contain a collection of plastic casts of original artworks from classical Antiquity these correspond exactly to the genuine antique portraits whenever lemman examines a suspected forgery he always Compares it with an original as in the case of this portrait of Augustus Caesar 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 years of experience a wealth of knowledge and intuition the you can see here how an official portrait of Augustus looks these eyes aren't very arched they just have a slight curve and there's the long nose and the mouth which is oriented toward the vertical axis then this calm facial expression this very calm expression with only slightly raised Contours only very light modeling which transports a very calm Timeless face and then we have the serrated edge at the bottom hardly ban at all but allegedly torn off with great force when you look at the details you have doubts about whether it really is a fake it's perfectly done masterly so to speak Stefan lemman really does think the head is a fake but to make sure verdict is right he has to get the head examined Again by scientific [Music] means The frenhofer Institute in F specializes in testing materials normally the scientists here test Industrial Products and research prototypes an alleged forgery by the Spanish Master is a first for them art evaluator haral Müller wants to have the bronze head scanned it's the first time anyone has tried to analyze a suspect sculpture head in this way we've already conducted a range of tests and to round it off we'd like a CT scan of the inside of the head exactly are you hoping to be able to see with a CT scan you can spot casting defects repair marks and what I'm really looking for is the holes left behind by the spacers Müller is hoping to see inside the head into the material it's made of to find out the method used to produce it I reckon he's all right there look good and stable Augustus is set up for his CT scan now Miller and The frenhofer Institute physicist are ready to examine the head Müller is a materials scientist and evaluates works of art made of metal porcelain or Fabrics this time its bronze purported to be from ancient times the first of the pictures pops up on the screen there you have your spacer looks quite funny that's good [Music] too but there appears to be a serious problem this is very strong radiation we can hardly recognize any sharp material structure you get the feeling that there are definitely some cavities in the material but you can't Define precisely how deep they are we simply didn't have strong enough radiation energy to penetrate this head properly so Augustus will have to have his head examined again back in Hala Stefan lemman has fresh news a fellow academic has brought to his attention a number of suspect bronze sculptures in France as regards the heads in the museum in the south of France in mang a private Museum belonging to an Englishman who made a lot of money and loved art he collected and then built a museum of antiquity in the south of France and suddenly and this really surprised me several ancient Roman bronze heads showed up here one of them has long hair that's highly suspect then there's this head with short hair that was unknown to me yes it's very strange then we have a head that is certainly supposed to have been part of a bust or statue as you can tell from the broken Edge the person is wearing a full beard and striking mustache so all at once we have one known in addition to two three four five of these life-sized or slightly larger than life-sized heads made of bronze which are obviously supposed to come from statues meanwhile Kristoff Leon has arrived in the south of France he wants to take a look himself at the Museum Stefan Layman told him about in his view what some of his counterparts in the art trade do is up to them but when purported works from Antiquity that are considered highly suspicious by academic make their way into museums that's going too far yeah hello mum you can already identify the Museum's problem areas on the internet because the exhibits are very well depicted well photographed well presented but there's a golden rule in archaeology the key is forensics in other words you have to examine things yourself and then when you've looked at a piece and determine that it's genuine you have to be honest enough to admit that you got it right we have to start fighting to keep museums free of forgeries museums are standard Works imagine if art history were suddenly studied on the basis of forgeries he's taking a look at the heads in the museum he wants to make up his own mind first before he makes his assessment known so this is completely wrong way off the mark these locks of hair like snakes no it's quite possible that this is a forgery by the Spanish master I definitely examine it with that in mind then I might be convinced but as I've said one of the features of the Spanish Master is that he tries to create ancient heads but never quite succeeds ultimately these heads portray a different sight gist a different Spirit you can see it no head of hair was ever portrayed like that in Antiquity didn't happen this head is strange too I don't trust it it's not an ancient style portraying someone like that there's no such thing an ancient face with eyes rolled upward and ultimately things were sold to him that had already graced the depot of various Antiquities dealers for years and then things like that came along that's definitely a fake a head like that is not from Antiquity I have my doubts about this too and things come along and you get carried away and you want to have them but that's obviously what happens when you put together a big collection under pressure and there are many objects here the Museum's full like I've said all museums have erroneous purchases in their basements lots of them this Museum too but they should sort through them and only exhibit the real ones Stefan lemman is writing a book about the works of art he ascribes to the Spanish Master he has pictures of 32 bronze sculptures on his desk he says the oldest items date from the 197 the Spanish Master's Workshop divides the labor I assume but I could be wrong there could be more but I suspect that there are one or two three people who think what are we going to do next this here is an exceptional piece a bronze portrait of a black African woman do we even have the idea let's do something like that now they have to make the molds cast the metal and then ruin it all make damage marks create a patina make it look ancient all that requires a lot of skill here we have two bronze sculptures one is the head of a lady dated to the late helenistic period or the second century depending on academic opinion and and this one is a purported goddess a bust that was placed in a round Shield a tond as it's called they're all part of the ancient art collection in Basel and are on show [Music] there the Museum of Ancient Art in Basel is the only Museum in Switzerland to exhibit exclusively classical antiques the two sculptures Stefan Layman believes to be highly suspicious stood here considered stars of the exhibition Museum director Andrea binasa has sent one of them to the workshop to have it examined once again by [Music] conservators the museum received the sculptures as part of a private Legacy gift from the Lut collection in aen Stefan Layman thinks the sculpture is the work of the Spanish Master [Music] come I have to say this all surprised me we didn't know that Layman was conducting such investigations and that he had included our two bronze sculptures from the ludvic collection their former owners Peta and enina lutvi collected art and acquired this bronze sculpture on the Art Market but the museum has no information about exactly where it comes from the idea of classical works with no known origin or provenance making their way into public museums via the Art Market is something Stefan lemman deplores Layman is class Arch here Layman is a classical archaeologist he's a professor at a university he's a curator at the archaeological Museum but he's no specialist in Bron statues although he seems to think so what I don't like in this case is this broadside on me personally on the museum on my colleagues so far there's absolutely no proof so I'm sticking to the version that these objects are original classical works of art yes of course the museums are never amused obviously when important artifacts that are shown in their main chamber are cast into doubt it always leads immediately to personal differences that's normal you can't avoid that [Music] entirely but I think the question of whether they are original sculptures or modern forgeries is so important that we have to be above these [Music] Trifles back at the F frenhofer Institute preparations are underway for a second scan of the Swiss collector's Augustus after the failure of the first attempt to get a CT scan material scientist Harold Müller is now getting the bronze head x-ray again in Europe's most powerful linear accelerator until now no Museum collector was prepared to hand over a suspected forgery for such an examination so no work ascribed to the master has yet been proved fake by these scientific methods the scientists have to leave the hall because of the extremely high radiation from the linear [Music] accelerator so the function the examination is focused on the metal alloy in the bronze sculpture is it really from an anity does it have the same characteristics as a bronze statue made 2,000 years ago one suspicion is that the forgers melt down ancient coins to cast new heads a clever approach what device this is perin Elma it's a Perkin Elma detector with 200 micrometer pixel pitch we believe because of a range of material characteristics that correspond with Antiquity that this sculpture is made of genuine ancient material there is ancient material available for things like this and would not be an entirely new idea to use or to have used old material for forgeries in this time the process works Mulla looks at the cross-sectional images of the head and he notices that the patina on the head is only on the outside surface that's strange you can see that this material has a different density from the material around it which has a different alloy composition we've carried out metallographic tests meaning on a cross-section of the material and the outer crust and determined for one thing that the corrosion which looks very bad to the naked eye is only on the surface that leads us to the conclusion that this artifact was created in modern times and designed to look very old scientific methods have proved the bronze sculpture of Augustus to be a I do think that the authorities are reluctant to regulate the Art Market because a strong Art Market is viewed as in the interests of the German economy maybe without exactly knowing what is going on today I think we've learned a lot in the last few months to start with that this trade because it is so profitable attracts those who try to make a profit from forged artifacts so we have to be on our guard especially when we take note of how imprecisely many objects are described when they are offered up for sale if you want to import Ukrainian sausage to the EU you need an import license certification a list of ingredients and chemical analyses cultural artifacts archaeological artifacts can be imported just like that without the documentation and certification so we have to assume that a corresponding proportion of forgeries is on the market as much as 40 to [Music] 50% as an archaeologist at the University Stefan lemman can Avail himself of his academic freedom to evaluate items from the art trade today he has reason to be satisfied his new book about suspect and forged bronze heads has been published with the results of the new tests at The frenhofer Institute which give him certainty ladies and gentlemen dear students I'm happy to welcome you here at our book presentation at the Martin Luther University in H in my opinion scholarship must respond clearly and effectively to these challenges only then can we defend the basis of our subject against this money grabbing attack and this is how he presents the results of his latest investigations into the museum in France in mu in muang a small town where Picasso spent his retirement near n a British multi-millionaire has established a private Museum which is home to a number of heads which he Acquired and exhibited but which can hardly be described as classical works of art in my [Music] opinion but while Stefan lemman presents the results of his research another bronze head which he describes in his book as highly suspicious shows up in the US it's presented as a loan from an anonymous private collector and it's this bronze head of Alexander the Great which Layman attributes to the workshop of the Spanish [Music] master it's no isolated case archaeologist Oscar muscarella has observed that museums in the US have often exhibited dubious works of art uh if a prent collector decides to make a donation to a museum in 99% of the time and perhaps 100 but I'll be generous 99% of the times the curator and director will accept it ifof Factor why because they they want this collector to give more things and also make Financial contributions in very few cases and if an curator does recognize that one or two objects of forgery they'll keep in the basement in very few rare case it's kept in the basement most cases it's on exhibit from the collection of S and S donated you see and and and the donor's family get uh get The Prestige of of this situation and you have this all over America the bronze sculpture is being exhibited without any details of provenance Kristoff Leon an old hand in the art trade also comes to the conclusion that the head is the work of the Spanish master and now it's shown up in the metropolitan where it's being exhibited as a loan being shown there certainly won't be bad for its market value I expect the head to show up at an auction again in the not too distant future for sure it'll show up again and what about the Spanish Master's identity and whereabouts we're still in the dark about them Stefan Layman suspects that what he's uncovered so far is only the tip of the iceberg and that there are many forgeries on show in museums around the [Music] world [Music] all