Let's show them why art is important. Buzz this up.
New York museum admits third of its Coptic art is fake
July 3, 2008
The Brooklyn Museum of Art admits a third of its Egyptian sculptures and reliefs are fakes. Instead of frowning about it, they will pit the real artifacts against the fakes in an upcoming exhibition.
"A major New York museum has admitted that about one third of its collection of Coptic sculptures and reliefs from ancient Egypt are fakes. It plans to put them on public view in a highly unusual exhibition next year.
Dr Edna Russmann, a curator at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, said she began to have suspicions about its collection of Coptic art - the second largest in North America - about four years ago. She said she has no qualms about going public with her findings now. "It's about time," she said.
Although some chemical testing on the works has yet to be completed, Dr Russmann considers that 10 of the 30 examples of Coptic art - Christian imagery in limestone from Egypt dating between the late fourth century and AD641 - held by the museum are phoney. Moreover, about half the other pieces have probably been extensively recarved and retouched.
Part of the purpose of the exhibition will be to alert other US institutions to the possibility that they too have fake pieces in their collections. "There are lot of museums in this country that have maybe two or three or four pieces," she said.
The publicity surrounding the exposure of the fakes should help promote the February exhibition, Dr Russmann said, and help offset any embarrassment stirred by the revelation, which was reported first by The Art Newspaper on its website. "I don't see any tragic faces here this morning," she noted."
