> I’ll wager that most if not all of these are artful fakes.
Then why would the authorities “return” them to the polities where they were “excavated”?
The slowness of the pros is due to the fact that they don’t have funding. Sales to collectors (with priority given to museums and universities) would fund archaeology and site conservation, but that would wrong wrong wrong because it is market-driven.
My first encounter with the Mona Lisa forger story was in the revived version of “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” — the guy stole the painting, had copies made, then on the QT offered the copies (one at a time) to rich foreigners with more money than brains, who were too humiliated by the con to report it after the real painting was returned to the Louvre. The same con man also sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap, twice, and got away clean. Eventually the crook got caught for something else, died in jail, with his death certificate showing a profession as “apprentice salesman”. :’)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Chaudron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_de_Valfierno
“Then why would the authorities “return” them to the polities where they were “excavated”?”
Because that automatically authenticates them making them worth money. Also, imagine how the fact that they’re real will enhance careers. (Yeah, I’m cynical to the bone.)
That Mona Lisa story is AWESOME!! Thanks.
I read, about 45 years ago, that a copy of the Mona Lisa was in a Virginia bank vault while the owners tried to get it authenticated.
The story was, Da Vinci made several copies of the painting back in his time.