August 22, 2023 • 35 mins
On Valentine's Day of 1961, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had to, for the very first time, announce they were housing a fake. Three fakes, actually. After nearly three decades as a prized exhibit, their Etruscan Terracotta Warriors, as they'd become known, were determined to be inauthentic -- but here's the story of how and why The Met should have know that fact before they ever put them on display.
Executive Producers: Maria Trimarchi and Holly Frey
Producer & Editor: Casby Bias
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Fool me once, Shame on you, Fool me twice, shame
on me, fool me three times well. In nineteen fifteen,
Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired its first of three
Etruscan statues, called the Old Warrior. The next year they
purchased a second piece. This one was called the Colossal Head,
(00:38):
which experts decided during our evaluation was part of a
twenty three foot tall warrior statue. In nineteen twenty one,
the museum purchased a third work, called the Big Warrior.
The statues eventually became known as the Etruscan terra Cotta Warriors.
And considering what season were in, this is no spoiler.
(00:59):
They were total fakes, and for three decades the met
displayed what they thought were prized pieces from the Etruscan civilization,
which flourished during the Iron Age in what is now
central Italy. Let's talk about those Terracotta warriors and how
it took decades to figure out their truth. Welcome to Criminalia,
(01:19):
I'm Maria Tremarchy.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And I'm Holly Frye. In nineteen thirty three, three large
Etruscan warrior sculptures made of terra cotta clay towered over
visitors at a brand new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York City. The Etruscan civilization, which
existed before the Romans, was a superpower of the Western Mediterranean,
(01:44):
but it's a civilization that scholars knew and know little about.
Though they did leave archaeological and genetic proof of their existence,
the Etruscans left no written history, at least none that
has been discovered. Which had never been seen or heard
of before, were believed to be from the fifth century BCE.
(02:07):
Two warriors stood tall. The old warrior was six feet
and the big warrior was eight feet in stature. The
colossal head, complete with a big curly beard, measured roughly
four feet tall and looked out from under a war helmet.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
The whole trouble began when renowned met curator Gizella Richter,
who had forty years of experience on Greek and Roman antiquities,
received a letter from a man named John Marshall, a
veteran purchasing agent working in Italy for the museum. Marshall
described to her a newly discovered life sized Etruscan terra
(02:46):
cotta warrior figure that had been found in an Italian field. Yep,
we are talking about the Old Warrior here. His initial
disclosure was quickly followed by another amazing find from that
same field, a four foot tall terra cotta warrior's head.
He alluded to the fact there could still be more
and greater treasure to be found at that location, and
(03:09):
you can bet she was interested.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
That first find. The Old Warrior is believed to have
been the first monumental sculpture produced by a man named
Pio Riccardi and his associates. Riccardi, together with two of
his cousins, Teodoro and Virgilio, and a colleague named Alfredo Fioravanti,
were the forgers behind the piece. They actually forged a
lot of things, and these three warriors that ended up
(03:36):
at the met were just one of their projects. This project, though,
was not an easy one. At first. They ran into
the simple question of what the heck did an Etruscan
warrior even look like. Without that knowledge, they decided to
base the likeness of their Old Warrior on a known
work believed to be of Etruscan origin. The reclining male
(03:59):
figure on the Sir Vitari Sarcophagus, also known as the
Sarcophagus of the Spouses, part of the Castellani collection at
the British Museum.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The men researched and argued about their works as they
created them. For instance, on the Old Warrior, the placement
of the right arm was problematic. They thought the warrior
should pull the shield, but adding a shield added too
much weight for the arm to remain supported, so they
took an easy way out. They just didn't include the arm.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
For the style of the colossal head, they looked at
what historian Pliny the Elder chronicle Whiney was, as you
may know, a bit of a lot of things, a naturalist,
a philosopher, writer, and military commander of the early Roman Empire.
His thirty seven volume work Natural History is considered one
(04:51):
of the world's earliest encyclopedias. In natural history, he describes
how an Etruscan sculptor named Voca had been asked to
create statues of the Roman gods Jupiter and Hercules, and
that each of those statues stood as great as twenty
five feet high. So just to be clear here, yes,
the Etruscan civilization predated the Roman Empire, but there was overlap.
(05:15):
Modern historians believe the Etruscans were absorbed into the Roman civilization,
and you can see they had influence on the Romans,
including in their arts. Both Riccardi and Fioravanti felt this
second Warrior should be large, but to try to fake
a piece on that scale was beyond their capabilities. Instead,
they decided to make a four foot tall head that
(05:38):
implied a twenty five foot tall body. As their inspiration.
For the warrior's face, they used a two dimensional figure
that was painted on a small Greek vase. Ironically, that
small terra cotta vase was owned and displayed by the
met when the three Forged Warriors were exhibited.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
There, and when it came to create the third Warrior,
they relied on a picture of a small brownze Greek
statue found in a book from the Berlin Museum. One
big problem they ran into here, though, was that the
large scale of the piece proved difficult. Remember the colossal
warrior stands eight feet tall.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
With the styles of the pieces chosen, there was then
the matter of materials used. Keep in mind, before there
were art forensics experts, you might visually notice stylistic elements
were incorrect, but materials could pretty often be faked. The
mixture for their models consisted of fine grain clay, sand
(06:39):
and a grog, and in this case we mean the
crushed fired clay that's added to rocklay, not the drink grog.
Their grog was made from broken pieces of old pottery,
which gave porosity to the mixture. That's important because it
prevents your pottery from contracting or losing moisture during the
clay firing process. Without some planning ahead, pottery after it's
(07:03):
fired could contract as much as thirty three percent, according
to Time magazine's coverage of the exposure of these forgeries.
After each work was sculpted, the forgers broke each one
into pieces before putting them through the firing process, and
that was just because they didn't have kilns big enough
to handle the large requirements.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
As each was completed, Marshall bought the works on behalf
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, packed each fake Warriors
fragments into crates, and sent those pieces to New York,
where they were to be assembled. In regard to the
Old Warrior. The first purchase Gizella Richter messaged to Marshal
that quote, the Etruscan terra cotta has arrived safely and
(07:47):
is at present being put together. I think it is
quite exciting and will be one of the most dramatic
things in the museum. How beautifully the painted patterns are preserved.
Do you know anything about the provenance? Marshall replied succinctly,
asking her to delay the announcement of the acquisition. So
why would he do that? Marshall knew that announcing the
(08:10):
METS purchase of the Old Warrior could trigger his competitors
to take a closer look into the Etruscan artifact, and
he wanted to avoid gossip about it and its origins.
No shady art dealer wants that. We're not saying Marshall
was in on the whole thing, but history can't say
he wasn't. And as to why Richter wasn't suspicious, we
(08:32):
can't answer that question either.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Marshall's hints of things to come did come to pass.
Marshall telegraphed Richter after seeing the colossal heads, saying quote,
I can find nothing approaching it in importance. Very quickly
after the acquisition of the Old Warrior on July twenty fifth,
nineteen sixteen, four crates containing one hundred and seventy eight
(08:57):
fragments of the Colossal Head arrived on the New York City.
This meant the shipment sailed during the First World War,
when German U boats were really taking a toll on
Transatlantic merchantmen. Other dealers at the time wondered why Marshall
would ship an allegedly irreplaceable treasure when there may not
(09:17):
have been safe passage across the Atlantic Ocean. But he
did it, and they did arrive just fine.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
In her excitement about the arrival of the final piece,
the Big Warrior, Richter, now remember she was a renowned
authority on ancient sculpture, wrote quote, we have here a
representation of a god of war, and undoubtedly the most
imposing conception of such a deity which has survived from antiquity.
(09:46):
But in reality, the Big Warrior was visibly oddly proportioned,
with one long arm and a frame that sat on
classically formed legs, which was not stylistically accurate. It would
later be determined some of the strangeness of the Big
Warrior was actually a result of the forgers working in
a small studio with a short ceiling, which is maybe
(10:09):
not the best place to create an eight foot tall statue.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsor, and when we return, we'll talk about how
in the world a veteran curator of ancient art could
be duped as easily as Gisella Richter.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Was welcome back to Criminalia. Were these warriors, gods or mortals?
While Richter pondered such questions, she overlooked some red flags.
(10:49):
Let's talk about why it took so long to out
these fakes.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So how could someone like Ghazella Richter not recognize these
forgeries or at least see some of the red flags.
Historians suggest that it was likely all in her excitement
about the find. She noted in her museum publications that
ancient Latin writers had mentioned Etruscan sculptures quote in terms
(11:14):
of wonder and admiration. In nineteen twenty one, the year
the Big Warrior arrived at the met Richtor wrote in
the museum's publication papers on the Etruscan Warriors that the
statues were quote under Greek influence, but Italian in nature,
and she wondered, in her writing, quote, whom did our
warrior represent was he a god or a mortal? The
(11:38):
statue was unusual in both size and in esthetic. In
addition to the long arm and the classically styled legs
we mentioned earlier, the shapes of the eyes and general
features were off. But Richtor believed the statues lived up
to the descriptions of wonder that she had read about
Etruscan art. Plus, they had been found and sent by
(12:01):
a trusted intermediary of the museum, John Marshall. Thomas Hoving,
who served as director of the met from nineteen sixty
seven to nineteen seventy seven, wrote a Richter in his
book False Impressions, The Hunt for Big Time Art Fakes
that quote. One presumes she was taken in by the
suave John Marshall and then allowed curatorial greed to take
(12:23):
over pride, no doubt had something to do with her
eagerness to acquire these largest ever discovered Etruscan sculptures.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
The three statues were mostly convincing to the eye, especially
an untrained eye. They were weathered, they were cracked. The
Old Warriors statue was missing both a thumb and an arm,
and their striking black glazes seemed just like those on
other ancient works. It wasn't like no one analyzed these warriors. Though,
(12:57):
a noted ceramics expert at the time time the works
were acquired, Charles Bins, evaluated each piece. Bins concluded that
the glaze that covered them was the very same black
glaze you'd find on ancient Greek pottery. This glazing technique
involved the work to be covered in a clay slip
that turned a glossy black during the firing process. Interestingly,
(13:20):
regarding his analysis, the process for making the glaze was
lost during the Roman Empire and had not been rediscovered
until nineteen forty two, roughly twenty years after the Met
acquired their final warrior. How could they then be modern forgeries?
The museum considered if no one at the time knew
how to make such a glaze, it factored into their
(13:40):
conclusion that the sculptures were authentic.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Not everyone, though, was celebrating this Etruscan art discovery. In
nineteen thirty three, the same year the three warriors went
on display, a bulletin published by the Met stated that
the statues had been quote compared with vigor, but there
were doubters. It was in nineteen thirty six when art
dealer Pietro Tozzi wrote to Richter saying that he had
(14:07):
heard gossip around Rome that the Etruscan warriors in her
museum's possession were not genuine, and to back up his claim,
he shared names of the likely forgers behind them, Ricardi
and Fioravanti. Marshall, who had acquired them, was the obvious
choice to turn to about this matter, but he had
(14:27):
passed away in nineteen twenty eight. Instead, Richter penned a
note to a woman named Annie Revere, who had been
Marshall's personal assistant and general right hand woman for years, saying, quote,
I don't propose to pay any attention to it except
to ask you to find out who this Fioravanti is
and what kind of things he makes. So Revere looked
(14:49):
into it, and she found that he was a man
who did a lot of things. He had been at
times a tailor, a dealer in old furniture, and that
quote he has been for many years and still was
a taxi driver in Rome. But Totsi's information was good.
Fioravanti also dabbled in forgery. Richter, for unknown reasons, never
(15:14):
followed up on this information.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
A few months after Richter and Binn's nineteen thirty seven
publication entitled Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Mma was published.
An Italian archaeologist named Massimo Palatino, based in Rome, wrote
an article for Archaeological Classica in which he quote dismissed
all three sculptors in a masterly manner as forgeries.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
With doubts increasing, Richter attempted again to find out more
about the source of the Terra cottas, In this time
Amadeo Riccardi, a son or perhaps a brother of one
of the forgers, was tracked down in Rome and asked
to assist the museum in its authenticity investigation, but when
asked about any specific details, he claimed he quote could
(16:03):
not remember anything definite. He did, however, reportedly draw a
map of a place that he called Boca Porca, the
alleged location where the Terra Cottas were uncovered, but he
strongly recommended against traveling there, stressing quote the difficulties. The
roads were bad, the locality could not be reached by
(16:25):
a car or looking at it another way, since Boca
Porca was a fake place he made up, it couldn't
be reached at all. He told Richtor that the person
who discovered the site was a man named Campanella, but
that he had died several years earlier. Campanella, however, like
Boca Porka, was not real. Richter insisted Amadeo take her
(16:50):
to quote the exact spot where he was told the
figures were found, but unfortunately for her, Amadeo told her
that a fountain had been built on the site. Amadeo
and Richter were in contact for a while, but historians
believe that he was likely diverting her from the truth.
Met curator Dietrich von Boehtmayer later stated that much, if
(17:12):
not all, of Amadeo's act was a charade, and that
also quote, with attacks of influenza, the spring plowing, and
the fields under cultivation, he was not able to help.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsor. When we're back, we're going to meet a
man named Harold Parsons who was critical in exposing the
truth behind the forgeries.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Okay, here's where it all unravels.
Let's talk about gossip testing and how three statues were
sent to the basement of the met.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
A man named Harold Woodbury Parsons was an art historian
who purchased antiquities for American museums in the mid twentieth century,
and Parsons expressed reservations about the Warriors as far back
as the early nineteen forties. During the nineteen fifties, several
other scholars challenged the authenticity as well, but it was
(18:23):
Parsons who dug in and began his own investigation in
nineteen fifty nine. After studying science at Harvard University, Parsons
turned to art and spent most of his life buying
European art from museums in the United States. When it
came to the three pieces at the met he was
quoted saying, I was always suspicious of them stylistically, I
(18:44):
sensed something wrong. While in retirement in Rome, he began
talking to art dealers around the city and has been
quoted saying pretty much what we similarly heard from John
Marshall and Pietro Tazzi years earlier, there are no secrets
in Rome, the most gossipy city in the world. In
that gossip, he recalled in an interview with Time magazine
(19:07):
that he kept hearing one name again and again, Alfredo Fioravanti, Fioravanti,
he discovered, was a repair man who specialized in antiques
and jewelry.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Curious about him.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Parsons got to know him.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
And that's really all it took. Eventually, during what he
thought was their blossoming friendship, Fioravanti shared the story of
the Etruscan Warrior forgery with Parsons. He spoke about how
he'd met Riccardi, who specialized in repairing ancient pottery for
Italian antique dealers. Fioravanti, who was a tailor at the
(19:44):
time the two met, switched careers to work in Riccardi's shop.
One day, at work, the men caught an idea. If
they could repair ancient works of art, what was stopping
them from creating fake works of art? And their new
career took ou off.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
In January of nineteen sixty one, Parsons, believing he had
enough information on the scam, took the confessed forger to
the United States Consulate in Rome, where Fioravanti then made
a signed confession about the forgeries. Next, Parsons sent a
letter to officials at the MET. The met Actually, it
(20:21):
turns out, wasn't really all that surprise to hear this
bad news, and that's because its own ceramics expert, Joseph Noble,
had recently tested the sculptures by replicating methods that the
ancient Etruscans would have used for making pottery, and he
found that things didn't really add up. But keep his
(20:44):
name in your pocket, because we're going to talk about
his discoveries in just a minute.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
On January twelfth, nineteen sixty one, met Museum director James
Romer received parsons correspondence from Rome, together with the translation
of the deposition that had been and signed by Alfredo
Fioravanti before the American consul in Rome one week prior
Roorimer immediately sent museum curator von Boudmayer to Rome. There
(21:11):
on behalf of the met He confronted Fioravanti in Harold
Parson's apartment. Von Boudmayer, according to a report of the
meeting published in Time magazine at the time, produced a
plaster cast of the single hand of the Old Warrior,
that hand that had a thumb missing. Fioravanti in turn
produced a thumb made of the same baked material as
(21:34):
the sculptures, a piece that he said he had kept
for years and you can guess what happened next That
thumb and hand fit together perfectly. He went on to
state that he had mixed the coloring agents used on
the statues, and he also told the men that while
the dealer got at least forty thousand dollars for the
(21:54):
sale of the Old Warrior, he personally only saw a
few hundred. Totally not bitter about it.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Having learned that Fioravanti and the Riccardis were the forgers
of the Etruscan Warriors, Met officials then looked for the
official seller of the art. An Italian art dealer named
Pietro Stettner had sold at the very least the Old
Warrior and the Colossal Head to John Marshall. Looking into
(22:22):
him and the nature of his dealings, Richter wrote, quote,
I learned Stettner was a high official in the Post
Office and a collector, not a forger. So that is that.
But Richter hadn't really cracked the case here. Former Met
Museum director Thomas Hoving described Stettner in one word as
(22:43):
quote crooked, and according to von Boehmer's report, Marshall had
purchased more than a dozen objects from Stettner between nineteen
fourteen and nineteen twenty interesting how those years line up
with the Etruscan statues. One of these objects was a
life sized terra cotta statue of a woman, which was
(23:03):
bought in nineteen sixteen and then discovered to be a
fake in nineteen twenty seven. To be clear here, that
was not a statue purchased by the met though the
timeline is in line with the statues they did buy
at that time, said von Boetmeer quote. The recognition that
an acquisition from a dealer is a forgery often leads
(23:24):
to a re examination of other objects from the same source,
all in an attempt to see how long the counterfeit
trail was and where it led. But that did not
happen here. No one exposed that Stettner had sold seven
terra cotta works in nineteen fourteen alone. Hoping suggests in
his book that in his position, Marshall shouldn't have been
(23:47):
fooled by these forgeries, and that his purchases suggest he
may have been complicit. What we know for sure is
that at least five of the fifteen objects Marshall bought
from Stettner over a short span of years were fakes.
So there's that question again, did he know the jury's
still out.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
On Valentine's Day of nineteen sixty one, twenty eight years
after they opened their Etruscan Warrior gallery, the MET issued
a press release about their prized pieces. In it, they
admitted that as a result of a recently completed series
of modern scientific and technical analyzes, they had learned the
three allegedly Etruscan terra cotta statues were of doubtful authenticity.
(24:34):
Using new testing methods not available a few decades prior,
they now had convincing proof that the materials used to
create these statues were not available or in use in
ancient times. According to New York Times coverage about the
forged Warriors, the MET had been quote uneasy for years
about the origin of the large sculptures. Time magazine reported that,
(24:57):
for the first time in its history, quote, the MET
had to announce that it was housing a fake.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Museum Director Roromer noted that these studies quote provided the
first technical evidence of their having been made in modern times,
and that this evidence was completely corroborated. On January fifth,
nineteen sixty one, when Alfredo Fioravanti signed a sworn statement
that he had helped make the terra cottas. What Romer
(25:25):
and other representatives for the met didn't say was that
the discovery followed years of bungled investigation by the museum
in an attempt to determine whether or not the works
were genuine, and that the warriors, if anyone had recognized
just a few red flags, could have been spotted as
fakes so much earlier.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So those red flags. First, they were in great condition
for pieces of broken terra cotta that had been allegedly
dug up from who knows how many years in the ground.
In fact, earlier in the episode we mentioned that Richter
had didn't question their amazing condition. Instead, she exclaimed that
they were quote still resplendent in their original colors when
(26:08):
describing them in that same nineteen thirty seven museum publication,
where she also wondered if they represented deities. And additionally,
when the pieces were assembled, each sculpture had only a
single vent hole, which should have been another red flag.
So if you're wondering what the problem is here, Von
Bodemeyer explained in a nineteen sixty one museum report that quote,
(26:31):
although each of the warriors had obviously been made in
one piece, but it would have been technically impossible to
fire them whole. There had been no adequate provision for
the circulation of air necessary during the drying and firing
of the clay, which in ancient terra cottas had been
assured by a proper disposition of vent holes. If you
(26:53):
were firing just fragments of a clay sculpture you'd made
and broken apart, though making sure there was vent tolls
for them wouldn't have really been an issue.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
One giant red flag came in nineteen fifty six from
Joseph Noble, who we mentioned just a moment ago. Noble
was hired that year by Rohmer as the museum's operating administrator,
a position he held until nineteen sixty seven. Noble also
served as chairman of the Administrative Committee and Vice director
(27:23):
of Administration, leaving the Met in nineteen seventy to become
director of the Museum of the City of New York.
While at the Met, though he was instrumental in exposing
the fake Etruscan statues. In fact, he was the first
official at the museum to really truly look at them.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
In an article published in The New York Times in
nineteen seventy nine years after the forgery was finally exposed
by Parsons, Nobel explained how he had discovered the Etruscan
Warriors were forgeries, stating quote, one day I walked around
to the dairy air of one of the warriors, took
a penknife, and yes, took off a piece about the
(28:03):
size of a pin. Noble, who was also an antiquities
collector and self trained ceramic archaeologist, recognized flaws in the statues,
but after chemical analysis and testing, he also discovered that
what Bins had thought was ancient Greek black glaze was
not so ancient. It contained a modern coloring agent called
(28:25):
manganese dioxide. His conclusion was that the three statues had
likely been created between nineteen fourteen and nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Nobel summarized the results of his close inspection of the warriors, stating, quote,
certain fractured areas do not properly join where this would
have been obvious. The edges of the brig have been
chipped away to hide the telltale flaws. This suggested that
the figures had warped and cracked in drying, and probably
were already in fragments before firing. That sounds a lot
(28:59):
like von Boehmer's assessment. An interesting aside on Noble. Noble
was a known forger, and he was open about doing so.
Through his research of Egyptian and Greek ceramics and the
materials they were made with, he became skilled in techniques
used in making ancient art, and he turned that knowledge
into sort of a hobby, creating replicas on a kiln
(29:21):
at his home. He didn't scam anyone into buying them, though,
he called it his research, and he went on to
publish a book called The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Roormer, in his final observation on the whole situation before
his sudden death in nineteen sixty six, said, quote, the
facts at hand should bring to a close what, alas
is not an isolated chapter in the history of collecting.
And according to the New York Times in nineteen sixty two,
after the sculptures were outed as inauthentic, the met moved
(29:54):
them to the basement with restricted viewing for scholars. Okay,
are you ready for a bogus bevy?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I'm always ready for a bogus bevy.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
This one is so funny that it made me laugh
very hard when I took the first sip, because I
made both of the drinks to make sure they looked right,
and then it was hilarious to look at one while
drinking me up.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
That is actually probably a little surreal.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
This is a super easy drink to make. It consists
of a half an ounce of banana liquere, an ounce
of a spiced rum, so you want a brown rum here,
and then an ounce and a half of cranberry juice
and you're gonna stir that together in a glass and
(30:46):
then give it like a little orange coin as a
garnish because it looks exactly like in agrony.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
But it's banana, right, which is hilarious to which is sorry,
I couldn't help it.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I wanted to try to replicate a drink that is
very Italian, which there's There are books written about the
history of the Nigroni. I have talked about it on
other shows, and the Nigroni is one of those infamous
cocktails that is often referred to as an acquired taste
because the initial sip is a lot. It's very bitter. Yeah,
(31:27):
Camari is a very bitter orange liqueur. It also has
sweet vermouth in it and gin, so it's a heavy
hitter in terms of alcohol content and it's biti. But
then you take a second or third sip and you
start to notice all of the different subtleties of it.
But it is an acquired taste.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Campari in general seems to be on a lot of
people's lists.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So right, so, if you are looking at a drink
that you think is gonna be a negroni and it
tastes like bananas, it's just funny, funny. That's a delicious drink.
Although I will say, really, you're not going to fool
anyone because even with only half an ounce, you can
smell the banana comment as you're bringing it up to
(32:09):
your lips. But it is so yummy. It tastes like
a tropical Caribbean getaway. Not at all.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
It sounds like a lovely hot weather refreshing And you
know when you bring that up thinking it's in a
grony and you get that smell of banana, you're like,
something's gone wrong.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
And I also, for no reason other than I just
wanted to see if I could. I wanted to make
a fake that you built in the same way, just
like in the grony. You normally build in the glass
and stir it to cool all of the elements. You
do the exact same thing with what I'm calling the
Boka porku because I made it up. It's not real,
(32:53):
and yeah, you just stir in the glass. It's three ingredients.
I initially tried to make it the same measures of
an ounce and announce and an ounce, and it didn't
get red enough. We had to throttle back the banana,
to throttle in a little more cranberry to get it
that red color. And it's pretty clear. I would say
it's within a shade or two of the NEGRONI I made.
(33:13):
Now in your experience, if you make this at home,
some of that's gonna be variable, right. Not every spiced
rum is quite the same shade of brown, Not every
cranberry juice is quite the same shade of red. So
if you are trying to make one just for fun
and match the colors exactly, you might need to tweak
the proportions a little bit more. But it looks if
(33:35):
I walked into a bar and someone were drinking it
and I didn't have the scent of it, I would
be like, oh, that person is drinking into grown.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Especially like the blacks are a little damn it might look,
you know, doesn't matter how red it.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Is, although I did make it in very bright light
so I could for you. Yes, I wanted to make
sure it's really And that's the Boca porkup, which made
me laugh so hard, because there's something so nerfully absurd
about banana favor when you think that you're getting come Barry,
(34:07):
it's just funny. It's just funny. The way to make
this as a mocktail is super easy. I almost skip
that entirely. You will just use a little banana syrup there,
easy peasy, and then in lieu of spice drum. You
can do a tea, a dark tea, and I would
if you want to make it yummy, I would add
(34:27):
some spices of your own to that tea, so make
like your favorite black tea, like whether you like an
Earl Gray or an English Breakfast or whatever. And then
I would add a little cardamom, maybe a little cinnamon,
maybe a little nutmeg, and just shake it up and
you can double strain it if you don't want any
debris in there, but then it's still.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Like I bet a little nutmeg would be great in
that mocktail.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Nutmeg is great and cocktails I love it. You can
also mess around with bitter, spice it up the way
you like, but it's still a Boca porka, and that's
what's important.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
It is.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
We'll see if I manage the same level of absurdity
next week. I hope you will join us to find out.
We'll have another forgery story and another cocktail that mocks
another drink. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in
(35:28):
partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Fool me once, Shame on you, Fool me twice, shame
on me, fool me three times well. In nineteen fifteen,
Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired its first of three
Etruscan statues, called the Old Warrior. The next year they
purchased a second piece. This one was called the Colossal Head,
(00:38):
which experts decided during our evaluation was part of a
twenty three foot tall warrior statue. In nineteen twenty one,
the museum purchased a third work, called the Big Warrior.
The statues eventually became known as the Etruscan terra Cotta Warriors.
And considering what season were in, this is no spoiler.
(00:59):
They were total fakes, and for three decades the met
displayed what they thought were prized pieces from the Etruscan civilization,
which flourished during the Iron Age in what is now
central Italy. Let's talk about those Terracotta warriors and how
it took decades to figure out their truth. Welcome to Criminalia,
(01:19):
I'm Maria Tremarchy.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
And I'm Holly Frye. In nineteen thirty three, three large
Etruscan warrior sculptures made of terra cotta clay towered over
visitors at a brand new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York City. The Etruscan civilization, which
existed before the Romans, was a superpower of the Western Mediterranean,
(01:44):
but it's a civilization that scholars knew and know little about.
Though they did leave archaeological and genetic proof of their existence,
the Etruscans left no written history, at least none that
has been discovered. Which had never been seen or heard
of before, were believed to be from the fifth century BCE.
(02:07):
Two warriors stood tall. The old warrior was six feet
and the big warrior was eight feet in stature. The
colossal head, complete with a big curly beard, measured roughly
four feet tall and looked out from under a war helmet.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
The whole trouble began when renowned met curator Gizella Richter,
who had forty years of experience on Greek and Roman antiquities,
received a letter from a man named John Marshall, a
veteran purchasing agent working in Italy for the museum. Marshall
described to her a newly discovered life sized Etruscan terra
(02:46):
cotta warrior figure that had been found in an Italian field. Yep,
we are talking about the Old Warrior here. His initial
disclosure was quickly followed by another amazing find from that
same field, a four foot tall terra cotta warrior's head.
He alluded to the fact there could still be more
and greater treasure to be found at that location, and
(03:09):
you can bet she was interested.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
That first find. The Old Warrior is believed to have
been the first monumental sculpture produced by a man named
Pio Riccardi and his associates. Riccardi, together with two of
his cousins, Teodoro and Virgilio, and a colleague named Alfredo Fioravanti,
were the forgers behind the piece. They actually forged a
lot of things, and these three warriors that ended up
(03:36):
at the met were just one of their projects. This project, though,
was not an easy one. At first. They ran into
the simple question of what the heck did an Etruscan
warrior even look like. Without that knowledge, they decided to
base the likeness of their Old Warrior on a known
work believed to be of Etruscan origin. The reclining male
(03:59):
figure on the Sir Vitari Sarcophagus, also known as the
Sarcophagus of the Spouses, part of the Castellani collection at
the British Museum.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The men researched and argued about their works as they
created them. For instance, on the Old Warrior, the placement
of the right arm was problematic. They thought the warrior
should pull the shield, but adding a shield added too
much weight for the arm to remain supported, so they
took an easy way out. They just didn't include the arm.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
For the style of the colossal head, they looked at
what historian Pliny the Elder chronicle Whiney was, as you
may know, a bit of a lot of things, a naturalist,
a philosopher, writer, and military commander of the early Roman Empire.
His thirty seven volume work Natural History is considered one
(04:51):
of the world's earliest encyclopedias. In natural history, he describes
how an Etruscan sculptor named Voca had been asked to
create statues of the Roman gods Jupiter and Hercules, and
that each of those statues stood as great as twenty
five feet high. So just to be clear here, yes,
the Etruscan civilization predated the Roman Empire, but there was overlap.
(05:15):
Modern historians believe the Etruscans were absorbed into the Roman civilization,
and you can see they had influence on the Romans,
including in their arts. Both Riccardi and Fioravanti felt this
second Warrior should be large, but to try to fake
a piece on that scale was beyond their capabilities. Instead,
they decided to make a four foot tall head that
(05:38):
implied a twenty five foot tall body. As their inspiration.
For the warrior's face, they used a two dimensional figure
that was painted on a small Greek vase. Ironically, that
small terra cotta vase was owned and displayed by the
met when the three Forged Warriors were exhibited.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
There, and when it came to create the third Warrior,
they relied on a picture of a small brownze Greek
statue found in a book from the Berlin Museum. One
big problem they ran into here, though, was that the
large scale of the piece proved difficult. Remember the colossal
warrior stands eight feet tall.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
With the styles of the pieces chosen, there was then
the matter of materials used. Keep in mind, before there
were art forensics experts, you might visually notice stylistic elements
were incorrect, but materials could pretty often be faked. The
mixture for their models consisted of fine grain clay, sand
(06:39):
and a grog, and in this case we mean the
crushed fired clay that's added to rocklay, not the drink grog.
Their grog was made from broken pieces of old pottery,
which gave porosity to the mixture. That's important because it
prevents your pottery from contracting or losing moisture during the
clay firing process. Without some planning ahead, pottery after it's
(07:03):
fired could contract as much as thirty three percent, according
to Time magazine's coverage of the exposure of these forgeries.
After each work was sculpted, the forgers broke each one
into pieces before putting them through the firing process, and
that was just because they didn't have kilns big enough
to handle the large requirements.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
As each was completed, Marshall bought the works on behalf
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, packed each fake Warriors
fragments into crates, and sent those pieces to New York,
where they were to be assembled. In regard to the
Old Warrior. The first purchase Gizella Richter messaged to Marshal
that quote, the Etruscan terra cotta has arrived safely and
(07:47):
is at present being put together. I think it is
quite exciting and will be one of the most dramatic
things in the museum. How beautifully the painted patterns are preserved.
Do you know anything about the provenance? Marshall replied succinctly,
asking her to delay the announcement of the acquisition. So
why would he do that? Marshall knew that announcing the
(08:10):
METS purchase of the Old Warrior could trigger his competitors
to take a closer look into the Etruscan artifact, and
he wanted to avoid gossip about it and its origins.
No shady art dealer wants that. We're not saying Marshall
was in on the whole thing, but history can't say
he wasn't. And as to why Richter wasn't suspicious, we
(08:32):
can't answer that question either.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Marshall's hints of things to come did come to pass.
Marshall telegraphed Richter after seeing the colossal heads, saying quote,
I can find nothing approaching it in importance. Very quickly
after the acquisition of the Old Warrior on July twenty fifth,
nineteen sixteen, four crates containing one hundred and seventy eight
(08:57):
fragments of the Colossal Head arrived on the New York City.
This meant the shipment sailed during the First World War,
when German U boats were really taking a toll on
Transatlantic merchantmen. Other dealers at the time wondered why Marshall
would ship an allegedly irreplaceable treasure when there may not
(09:17):
have been safe passage across the Atlantic Ocean. But he
did it, and they did arrive just fine.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
In her excitement about the arrival of the final piece,
the Big Warrior, Richter, now remember she was a renowned
authority on ancient sculpture, wrote quote, we have here a
representation of a god of war, and undoubtedly the most
imposing conception of such a deity which has survived from antiquity.
(09:46):
But in reality, the Big Warrior was visibly oddly proportioned,
with one long arm and a frame that sat on
classically formed legs, which was not stylistically accurate. It would
later be determined some of the strangeness of the Big
Warrior was actually a result of the forgers working in
a small studio with a short ceiling, which is maybe
(10:09):
not the best place to create an eight foot tall statue.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsor, and when we return, we'll talk about how
in the world a veteran curator of ancient art could
be duped as easily as Gisella Richter.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Was welcome back to Criminalia. Were these warriors, gods or mortals?
While Richter pondered such questions, she overlooked some red flags.
(10:49):
Let's talk about why it took so long to out
these fakes.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So how could someone like Ghazella Richter not recognize these
forgeries or at least see some of the red flags.
Historians suggest that it was likely all in her excitement
about the find. She noted in her museum publications that
ancient Latin writers had mentioned Etruscan sculptures quote in terms
(11:14):
of wonder and admiration. In nineteen twenty one, the year
the Big Warrior arrived at the met Richtor wrote in
the museum's publication papers on the Etruscan Warriors that the
statues were quote under Greek influence, but Italian in nature,
and she wondered, in her writing, quote, whom did our
warrior represent was he a god or a mortal? The
(11:38):
statue was unusual in both size and in esthetic. In
addition to the long arm and the classically styled legs
we mentioned earlier, the shapes of the eyes and general
features were off. But Richtor believed the statues lived up
to the descriptions of wonder that she had read about
Etruscan art. Plus, they had been found and sent by
(12:01):
a trusted intermediary of the museum, John Marshall. Thomas Hoving,
who served as director of the met from nineteen sixty
seven to nineteen seventy seven, wrote a Richter in his
book False Impressions, The Hunt for Big Time Art Fakes
that quote. One presumes she was taken in by the
suave John Marshall and then allowed curatorial greed to take
(12:23):
over pride, no doubt had something to do with her
eagerness to acquire these largest ever discovered Etruscan sculptures.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
The three statues were mostly convincing to the eye, especially
an untrained eye. They were weathered, they were cracked. The
Old Warriors statue was missing both a thumb and an arm,
and their striking black glazes seemed just like those on
other ancient works. It wasn't like no one analyzed these warriors. Though,
(12:57):
a noted ceramics expert at the time time the works
were acquired, Charles Bins, evaluated each piece. Bins concluded that
the glaze that covered them was the very same black
glaze you'd find on ancient Greek pottery. This glazing technique
involved the work to be covered in a clay slip
that turned a glossy black during the firing process. Interestingly,
(13:20):
regarding his analysis, the process for making the glaze was
lost during the Roman Empire and had not been rediscovered
until nineteen forty two, roughly twenty years after the Met
acquired their final warrior. How could they then be modern forgeries?
The museum considered if no one at the time knew
how to make such a glaze, it factored into their
(13:40):
conclusion that the sculptures were authentic.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Not everyone, though, was celebrating this Etruscan art discovery. In
nineteen thirty three, the same year the three warriors went
on display, a bulletin published by the Met stated that
the statues had been quote compared with vigor, but there
were doubters. It was in nineteen thirty six when art
dealer Pietro Tozzi wrote to Richter saying that he had
(14:07):
heard gossip around Rome that the Etruscan warriors in her
museum's possession were not genuine, and to back up his claim,
he shared names of the likely forgers behind them, Ricardi
and Fioravanti. Marshall, who had acquired them, was the obvious
choice to turn to about this matter, but he had
(14:27):
passed away in nineteen twenty eight. Instead, Richter penned a
note to a woman named Annie Revere, who had been
Marshall's personal assistant and general right hand woman for years, saying, quote,
I don't propose to pay any attention to it except
to ask you to find out who this Fioravanti is
and what kind of things he makes. So Revere looked
(14:49):
into it, and she found that he was a man
who did a lot of things. He had been at
times a tailor, a dealer in old furniture, and that
quote he has been for many years and still was
a taxi driver in Rome. But Totsi's information was good.
Fioravanti also dabbled in forgery. Richter, for unknown reasons, never
(15:14):
followed up on this information.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
A few months after Richter and Binn's nineteen thirty seven
publication entitled Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Mma was published.
An Italian archaeologist named Massimo Palatino, based in Rome, wrote
an article for Archaeological Classica in which he quote dismissed
all three sculptors in a masterly manner as forgeries.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
With doubts increasing, Richter attempted again to find out more
about the source of the Terra cottas, In this time
Amadeo Riccardi, a son or perhaps a brother of one
of the forgers, was tracked down in Rome and asked
to assist the museum in its authenticity investigation, but when
asked about any specific details, he claimed he quote could
(16:03):
not remember anything definite. He did, however, reportedly draw a
map of a place that he called Boca Porca, the
alleged location where the Terra Cottas were uncovered, but he
strongly recommended against traveling there, stressing quote the difficulties. The
roads were bad, the locality could not be reached by
(16:25):
a car or looking at it another way, since Boca
Porca was a fake place he made up, it couldn't
be reached at all. He told Richtor that the person
who discovered the site was a man named Campanella, but
that he had died several years earlier. Campanella, however, like
Boca Porka, was not real. Richter insisted Amadeo take her
(16:50):
to quote the exact spot where he was told the
figures were found, but unfortunately for her, Amadeo told her
that a fountain had been built on the site. Amadeo
and Richter were in contact for a while, but historians
believe that he was likely diverting her from the truth.
Met curator Dietrich von Boehtmayer later stated that much, if
(17:12):
not all, of Amadeo's act was a charade, and that
also quote, with attacks of influenza, the spring plowing, and
the fields under cultivation, he was not able to help.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsor. When we're back, we're going to meet a
man named Harold Parsons who was critical in exposing the
truth behind the forgeries.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Okay, here's where it all unravels.
Let's talk about gossip testing and how three statues were
sent to the basement of the met.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
A man named Harold Woodbury Parsons was an art historian
who purchased antiquities for American museums in the mid twentieth century,
and Parsons expressed reservations about the Warriors as far back
as the early nineteen forties. During the nineteen fifties, several
other scholars challenged the authenticity as well, but it was
(18:23):
Parsons who dug in and began his own investigation in
nineteen fifty nine. After studying science at Harvard University, Parsons
turned to art and spent most of his life buying
European art from museums in the United States. When it
came to the three pieces at the met he was
quoted saying, I was always suspicious of them stylistically, I
(18:44):
sensed something wrong. While in retirement in Rome, he began
talking to art dealers around the city and has been
quoted saying pretty much what we similarly heard from John
Marshall and Pietro Tazzi years earlier, there are no secrets
in Rome, the most gossipy city in the world. In
that gossip, he recalled in an interview with Time magazine
(19:07):
that he kept hearing one name again and again, Alfredo Fioravanti, Fioravanti,
he discovered, was a repair man who specialized in antiques
and jewelry.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Curious about him.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Parsons got to know him.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
And that's really all it took. Eventually, during what he
thought was their blossoming friendship, Fioravanti shared the story of
the Etruscan Warrior forgery with Parsons. He spoke about how
he'd met Riccardi, who specialized in repairing ancient pottery for
Italian antique dealers. Fioravanti, who was a tailor at the
(19:44):
time the two met, switched careers to work in Riccardi's shop.
One day, at work, the men caught an idea. If
they could repair ancient works of art, what was stopping
them from creating fake works of art? And their new
career took ou off.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
In January of nineteen sixty one, Parsons, believing he had
enough information on the scam, took the confessed forger to
the United States Consulate in Rome, where Fioravanti then made
a signed confession about the forgeries. Next, Parsons sent a
letter to officials at the MET. The met Actually, it
(20:21):
turns out, wasn't really all that surprise to hear this
bad news, and that's because its own ceramics expert, Joseph Noble,
had recently tested the sculptures by replicating methods that the
ancient Etruscans would have used for making pottery, and he
found that things didn't really add up. But keep his
(20:44):
name in your pocket, because we're going to talk about
his discoveries in just a minute.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
On January twelfth, nineteen sixty one, met Museum director James
Romer received parsons correspondence from Rome, together with the translation
of the deposition that had been and signed by Alfredo
Fioravanti before the American consul in Rome one week prior
Roorimer immediately sent museum curator von Boudmayer to Rome. There
(21:11):
on behalf of the met He confronted Fioravanti in Harold
Parson's apartment. Von Boudmayer, according to a report of the
meeting published in Time magazine at the time, produced a
plaster cast of the single hand of the Old Warrior,
that hand that had a thumb missing. Fioravanti in turn
produced a thumb made of the same baked material as
(21:34):
the sculptures, a piece that he said he had kept
for years and you can guess what happened next That
thumb and hand fit together perfectly. He went on to
state that he had mixed the coloring agents used on
the statues, and he also told the men that while
the dealer got at least forty thousand dollars for the
(21:54):
sale of the Old Warrior, he personally only saw a
few hundred. Totally not bitter about it.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Having learned that Fioravanti and the Riccardis were the forgers
of the Etruscan Warriors, Met officials then looked for the
official seller of the art. An Italian art dealer named
Pietro Stettner had sold at the very least the Old
Warrior and the Colossal Head to John Marshall. Looking into
(22:22):
him and the nature of his dealings, Richter wrote, quote,
I learned Stettner was a high official in the Post
Office and a collector, not a forger. So that is that.
But Richter hadn't really cracked the case here. Former Met
Museum director Thomas Hoving described Stettner in one word as
(22:43):
quote crooked, and according to von Boehmer's report, Marshall had
purchased more than a dozen objects from Stettner between nineteen
fourteen and nineteen twenty interesting how those years line up
with the Etruscan statues. One of these objects was a
life sized terra cotta statue of a woman, which was
(23:03):
bought in nineteen sixteen and then discovered to be a
fake in nineteen twenty seven. To be clear here, that
was not a statue purchased by the met though the
timeline is in line with the statues they did buy
at that time, said von Boetmeer quote. The recognition that
an acquisition from a dealer is a forgery often leads
(23:24):
to a re examination of other objects from the same source,
all in an attempt to see how long the counterfeit
trail was and where it led. But that did not
happen here. No one exposed that Stettner had sold seven
terra cotta works in nineteen fourteen alone. Hoping suggests in
his book that in his position, Marshall shouldn't have been
(23:47):
fooled by these forgeries, and that his purchases suggest he
may have been complicit. What we know for sure is
that at least five of the fifteen objects Marshall bought
from Stettner over a short span of years were fakes.
So there's that question again, did he know the jury's
still out.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
On Valentine's Day of nineteen sixty one, twenty eight years
after they opened their Etruscan Warrior gallery, the MET issued
a press release about their prized pieces. In it, they
admitted that as a result of a recently completed series
of modern scientific and technical analyzes, they had learned the
three allegedly Etruscan terra cotta statues were of doubtful authenticity.
(24:34):
Using new testing methods not available a few decades prior,
they now had convincing proof that the materials used to
create these statues were not available or in use in
ancient times. According to New York Times coverage about the
forged Warriors, the MET had been quote uneasy for years
about the origin of the large sculptures. Time magazine reported that,
(24:57):
for the first time in its history, quote, the MET
had to announce that it was housing a fake.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Museum Director Roromer noted that these studies quote provided the
first technical evidence of their having been made in modern times,
and that this evidence was completely corroborated. On January fifth,
nineteen sixty one, when Alfredo Fioravanti signed a sworn statement
that he had helped make the terra cottas. What Romer
(25:25):
and other representatives for the met didn't say was that
the discovery followed years of bungled investigation by the museum
in an attempt to determine whether or not the works
were genuine, and that the warriors, if anyone had recognized
just a few red flags, could have been spotted as
fakes so much earlier.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So those red flags. First, they were in great condition
for pieces of broken terra cotta that had been allegedly
dug up from who knows how many years in the ground.
In fact, earlier in the episode we mentioned that Richter
had didn't question their amazing condition. Instead, she exclaimed that
they were quote still resplendent in their original colors when
(26:08):
describing them in that same nineteen thirty seven museum publication,
where she also wondered if they represented deities. And additionally,
when the pieces were assembled, each sculpture had only a
single vent hole, which should have been another red flag.
So if you're wondering what the problem is here, Von
Bodemeyer explained in a nineteen sixty one museum report that quote,
(26:31):
although each of the warriors had obviously been made in
one piece, but it would have been technically impossible to
fire them whole. There had been no adequate provision for
the circulation of air necessary during the drying and firing
of the clay, which in ancient terra cottas had been
assured by a proper disposition of vent holes. If you
(26:53):
were firing just fragments of a clay sculpture you'd made
and broken apart, though making sure there was vent tolls
for them wouldn't have really been an issue.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
One giant red flag came in nineteen fifty six from
Joseph Noble, who we mentioned just a moment ago. Noble
was hired that year by Rohmer as the museum's operating administrator,
a position he held until nineteen sixty seven. Noble also
served as chairman of the Administrative Committee and Vice director
(27:23):
of Administration, leaving the Met in nineteen seventy to become
director of the Museum of the City of New York.
While at the Met, though he was instrumental in exposing
the fake Etruscan statues. In fact, he was the first
official at the museum to really truly look at them.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
In an article published in The New York Times in
nineteen seventy nine years after the forgery was finally exposed
by Parsons, Nobel explained how he had discovered the Etruscan
Warriors were forgeries, stating quote, one day I walked around
to the dairy air of one of the warriors, took
a penknife, and yes, took off a piece about the
(28:03):
size of a pin. Noble, who was also an antiquities
collector and self trained ceramic archaeologist, recognized flaws in the statues,
but after chemical analysis and testing, he also discovered that
what Bins had thought was ancient Greek black glaze was
not so ancient. It contained a modern coloring agent called
(28:25):
manganese dioxide. His conclusion was that the three statues had
likely been created between nineteen fourteen and nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Nobel summarized the results of his close inspection of the warriors, stating, quote,
certain fractured areas do not properly join where this would
have been obvious. The edges of the brig have been
chipped away to hide the telltale flaws. This suggested that
the figures had warped and cracked in drying, and probably
were already in fragments before firing. That sounds a lot
(28:59):
like von Boehmer's assessment. An interesting aside on Noble. Noble
was a known forger, and he was open about doing so.
Through his research of Egyptian and Greek ceramics and the
materials they were made with, he became skilled in techniques
used in making ancient art, and he turned that knowledge
into sort of a hobby, creating replicas on a kiln
(29:21):
at his home. He didn't scam anyone into buying them, though,
he called it his research, and he went on to
publish a book called The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Roormer, in his final observation on the whole situation before
his sudden death in nineteen sixty six, said, quote, the
facts at hand should bring to a close what, alas
is not an isolated chapter in the history of collecting.
And according to the New York Times in nineteen sixty two,
after the sculptures were outed as inauthentic, the met moved
(29:54):
them to the basement with restricted viewing for scholars. Okay,
are you ready for a bogus bevy?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I'm always ready for a bogus bevy.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
This one is so funny that it made me laugh
very hard when I took the first sip, because I
made both of the drinks to make sure they looked right,
and then it was hilarious to look at one while
drinking me up.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
That is actually probably a little surreal.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
This is a super easy drink to make. It consists
of a half an ounce of banana liquere, an ounce
of a spiced rum, so you want a brown rum here,
and then an ounce and a half of cranberry juice
and you're gonna stir that together in a glass and
(30:46):
then give it like a little orange coin as a
garnish because it looks exactly like in agrony.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
But it's banana, right, which is hilarious to which is sorry,
I couldn't help it.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
I wanted to try to replicate a drink that is
very Italian, which there's There are books written about the
history of the Nigroni. I have talked about it on
other shows, and the Nigroni is one of those infamous
cocktails that is often referred to as an acquired taste
because the initial sip is a lot. It's very bitter. Yeah,
(31:27):
Camari is a very bitter orange liqueur. It also has
sweet vermouth in it and gin, so it's a heavy
hitter in terms of alcohol content and it's biti. But
then you take a second or third sip and you
start to notice all of the different subtleties of it.
But it is an acquired taste.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Campari in general seems to be on a lot of
people's lists.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So right, so, if you are looking at a drink
that you think is gonna be a negroni and it
tastes like bananas, it's just funny, funny. That's a delicious drink.
Although I will say, really, you're not going to fool
anyone because even with only half an ounce, you can
smell the banana comment as you're bringing it up to
(32:09):
your lips. But it is so yummy. It tastes like
a tropical Caribbean getaway. Not at all.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
It sounds like a lovely hot weather refreshing And you
know when you bring that up thinking it's in a
grony and you get that smell of banana, you're like,
something's gone wrong.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
And I also, for no reason other than I just
wanted to see if I could. I wanted to make
a fake that you built in the same way, just
like in the grony. You normally build in the glass
and stir it to cool all of the elements. You
do the exact same thing with what I'm calling the
Boka porku because I made it up. It's not real,
(32:53):
and yeah, you just stir in the glass. It's three ingredients.
I initially tried to make it the same measures of
an ounce and announce and an ounce, and it didn't
get red enough. We had to throttle back the banana,
to throttle in a little more cranberry to get it
that red color. And it's pretty clear. I would say
it's within a shade or two of the NEGRONI I made.
(33:13):
Now in your experience, if you make this at home,
some of that's gonna be variable, right. Not every spiced
rum is quite the same shade of brown, Not every
cranberry juice is quite the same shade of red. So
if you are trying to make one just for fun
and match the colors exactly, you might need to tweak
the proportions a little bit more. But it looks if
(33:35):
I walked into a bar and someone were drinking it
and I didn't have the scent of it, I would
be like, oh, that person is drinking into grown.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Especially like the blacks are a little damn it might look,
you know, doesn't matter how red it.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Is, although I did make it in very bright light
so I could for you. Yes, I wanted to make
sure it's really And that's the Boca porkup, which made
me laugh so hard, because there's something so nerfully absurd
about banana favor when you think that you're getting come Barry,
(34:07):
it's just funny. It's just funny. The way to make
this as a mocktail is super easy. I almost skip
that entirely. You will just use a little banana syrup there,
easy peasy, and then in lieu of spice drum. You
can do a tea, a dark tea, and I would
if you want to make it yummy, I would add
(34:27):
some spices of your own to that tea, so make
like your favorite black tea, like whether you like an
Earl Gray or an English Breakfast or whatever. And then
I would add a little cardamom, maybe a little cinnamon,
maybe a little nutmeg, and just shake it up and
you can double strain it if you don't want any
debris in there, but then it's still.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Like I bet a little nutmeg would be great in
that mocktail.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Nutmeg is great and cocktails I love it. You can
also mess around with bitter, spice it up the way
you like, but it's still a Boca porka, and that's
what's important.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
It is.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
We'll see if I manage the same level of absurdity
next week. I hope you will join us to find out.
We'll have another forgery story and another cocktail that mocks
another drink. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in
(35:28):
partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
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