- Museum number
- 1910,0622.1
- Description
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Gilded white metal belt; composite, articulated; forty one stiffeners each with central winged insect set with cloisonné garnets flanked by two opposed eagle heads; ends of belt two plates cast in relief as confronted moulded boar, and eagle, with stag and sheep; hook-and-eye fastening; organic strip mount; fake; in twenty six fragments. Also one box of leather fragments.
- Production date
- 1900-1910 (?)
- Dimensions
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Length: 74 centimetres (surviving)
- Curator's comments
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The form may be based on Bulgarian belts of c. 16th-19th cents. consisting of metal plates.
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Jones 1990
The Sarmatian group of Odessa forgeries
From some time in the 1890s until the 1920s private collectors and museums in Europe and North America were delighted to acquire examples of a class of gold, silver and silver-gilt objects of colonial Greek or 'Sarmatian' style which were said to have been plundered by peasants from burial mounds in the Black Sea region of Russia and adjacent countries. Examples were rapidly absorbed into the literature of the subject and illustrated recurrently in authoritative studies by leading scholars. The true source of these spectacular objects, of which there is still no complete inventory, has only become publicly known since the publication of a paper by A. A. Iessen in 1961.
Iessen convincingly demonstrated that the well-known 'Maikop Belt' in the Hermitage, Leningrad, acquired from 'a private person in 1916', and a very similar belt in the British Museum (registration no. 1910,0622.1), said to be from Sofia in Bulgaria when acquired in 1910, had both been made in Odessa to the orders of two local antique dealers, the brothers S. and L. Gokhman, in the previous decade or so. The method they used was simple and brilliantly successful. They commissioned extremely skilful local craftsmen to create jewellery and plate, sometimes incorporating suitably damaged parts, based on patterns they had drawn up from the magnificent illustrations of genuine goldwork in N. Kondakof, J. Tolstoi & S. Reinach's 'Antiquités de la Russie Méridionale' (Paris 1891) and other finely illustrated archaeological publications. They specialised primarily in recreating two styles: that of the Greek craftsmen who lived in Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast in the late fifth to third centuries BC, catering to the tastes of the rich barbarian chiefs of the hinterland; and that of artisans of the Migration Period, ranging from the last centuries of the first millennium BC to the first few centuries of the next millennium, material now generally termed 'Sarmatian', though sometimes referred to as 'Gothic antiquities' at the time of production. With the wisdom of hindsight, it may be observed that these objects incorporate traits of the Art Nouveau style then fashionable among jewellers, for which there are no parallels in antiquity.
It appears that the Gokhman brothers dealt first in the Greek style, only switching to the later one after the 'Tiara of Saitapharnes', sold to the Louvre in 1896, had finally been withdrawn from display in 1903. By that time other objects in the same style had passed into public and private collections. The Gokhmans' second group of forgeries, in Sarmatian style, was distinguished by a lavish use of inlays incorporating almandines (garnets with a violet tint), many of which may have been obtained from ancient graves.
The workshop or workshops producing these objects ceased operations in Odessa at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917; but L. Gokhman moved to Berlin with his stock and German soldiers returning home from the Russian front may have taken other examples westwards with them. It appears that the objects included here from the Howard de Waiden Collection (now in the National Museum of Wales) were rejected by Berlin Museums as 'Gokhman forgeries' early in the 1920s, before they passed to the English private collection.
Literature: O. M. Dalton, 'The Treasure of the Oxus with other examples of early Oriental Metalwork', 2nd edn, London 1926; A. A. Iessen, 'The so-called "Maikop Belt"', Arkheologicheskii Sbornik (1961), pp. 163-77; P. R. S. Moorey, 'Some Ancient Metal Belts - a cautionary note', Iran VIII, (1967), p. 155; M. Rostovtzeff, 'The Animal Style in South Russia and China', Princeton 1929, 48, pl. 13.
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Comment from Kidd, Haith & Ager 'Summary Catalogue' (draft MS)
Published:
SMITH R.A. 1923. A Guide to the Anglo-Saxon and Foreign Teutonic Antiquities in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities. London, p. 170, fig. 223
ROSTOVTZEFF M. 1924. L'art gréco-sarmate et l'art chinois de l'époque des Han, Aréthuse 1, no. 3, 1924, Paris, pp. 85 6
DALTON O.M. 1926. The Treasure of the Oxus with Other Examples of Early Oriental Metalwork, 2nd ed. London, p. lii note 3, fig. 35;
SALMONY A. 1937. Lead Plates in Odessa, Eurasia Septentrionalis Antiqua IX, Helsinki, p. 92, fig. 5; but see Iessen 1961 for further publications and commentary on the faking and Moorey 1969, p. 155
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1910
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1910,0622.1