Bazaar archaeology at its most egregious

 

                                               nicholas gunn                                     

Over on an open access antiquities collectors' forum just a mouse click away, yet another example of the maxim "buy the book before you buy the antiquity". You should not trust what dealers say, and really have to know what you are doing on this market specifically.

A "nicholas.gunn@..." contacted the group with a demand: "fake or not"...

nicholas.gunn@...Jul 1 #96954
hi i am new to your group and thanks for letting me join. i am a collector of any thing roman based in the uk ,i have just purchased these roman razors from a auction house in the uk i had a good look at them before biding and i thought they was ok, i have recently put them on a collecting site of roman antiquities site and someone suggested they could be fake,can anyone help thanks

There might be clue there why buying a book may not even help in all cases. These are the people that artefacts are ripped out of archaeological contexts to titillate. Fortunately, the production of these three artefacts did not damage any archaeological context, just the eyes and insult the intelligence. A couple of members try to enlighten him

Robert Kokotailo Jul 1 #96956
I am not expert specifically on Roman razors but I know a fair bit about Roman bronze work in general. I would be very surprised if these turnout to be genuine. They all have stylistic problems in the finer details that do not look like Roman workmanship and the patinas look artificial.

The punctuation-challenged Mr Gunn is at first acquiescent, then stubbornly defiant:

nicholas.gunn@...Jul 1 #96959 "thanks for your reply i feared the worst thanks". nicholas.gunn@...Jul 1 #96960 "just found thi what do you think- https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/91547059_roman-razor-with-lions-attacking-antelope"

So a "looks like" totally sidesteps what the knowledgeable and frank Canadian dealer says (when asked) about style, workmanship and condition. Instead of being a properly-grounded artefact with the same style, workmanship and condition, "this" is another object from the antiquities market, sold by a UK dealer based in the port town of Harwich. But he's right, this example "From the collection of a European gentleman living in South London; acquired 1970-1980", on a number of counts looks very much like the object the UK collector bought (see below).

Then David Knell had a go providing an answer to his question with some sound observations:

David Knell Jul 1 #96961
That razor with two lions from TimeLine (sold £700) shares some characteristics with an equally dubious example with double-headed horse sold on Catawiki (sold £296): questionable artistic style, strangely even and unlayered patina on the bronze, curiously intact iron blade, etc. I wouldn't trust either of those razors as far as I could strop them. Ultimately, it's not just a matter of what makes an item look fake; it's a matter of what makes an item look authentic - and I see nothing at all that convinces me that those razors are.

Me neither. The catawiki one was sold 28-03-2018 for € 340 on a Catawiki-hosted auction curated by Peter Reynaers by 'fleur_de_coin' based in Austria. Nicholas Gunn, who is puzzled by punctuation, also does not really understand what David Knell says though, and has problems applying by himself what he might have learnt to his own items:

nicholas.gunn@...Jul 2 #96968 yes i agree but what do you think of mine

He says he "agrees" (apparently goes along with everything he's told without thinking about it first - I bet he voted for Brexit too) but basically is still in the dark. So David Knell explains again:

David Knell Jul 3 #96987 [..] I'm confident that all three items shown in your first post are modern fakes. Their suspiciously ambitious design, unconvincing artistic elements, careless finish, poorly executed patina, convenient lack of relative ferrous corrosion, and other factors are typical of the kind of thing being churned out in enormous numbers by workshops in eastern Europe.

Quick as a flash, the denial and self-deception that seems so endemic to many antiquities buyers:

nicholas.gunn@...Jul 3 #96988
if there being churned out in enormous numbers why can i not find any like these

I think that was supposed to be a question. But it illustrates the whole mechanism of "authentication" by seeing whether there is something else (even, or maybe especially, on the market) that "looks like this" - and we assume that largely means "looks like this, on the Internet".

What he was told, but did not understand was: "stylistic problems in the finer details that do not look like Roman workmanship and the patinas look artificial", "questionable artistic style, strangely even and unlayered patina on the bronze, curiously intact iron blade, etc.", "suspiciously ambitious design, unconvincing artistic elements, careless finish, poorly executed patina, convenient lack of relative ferrous corrosion, and other factors".

Instead of being in denial, the collector might have spent a moment to reflect on the repeating information here:

1) I must find out more about Roman style, both in form of typical artefacts of this type as well as how the workmanship actually looks on grounded (ie properly excavated and published) artefacts.
2) There seems to be some problem with the patina, what did Robert mean about "patina looks artificial", what does arteficial patina look like? What are the different ways it is made and how would I recognise them? What did David mean about "poorly executed patina"? How could the patina look more convincing as something that had come out of the ground? What did the fakers get wrong? What did he mean by "strangely even and unlayered"? Maybe I need to do some reading on corrosion processes underground, at the moment, it seems David might know more about this than me.
3) What's wrong with the iron being like it is? What did David mean by "curiously intact" and "lack of relative ferrous corrosion"? I think there was something in school about that once, "reactic series" or something like that, but I was too busy daydreaming to pay any attention to chemistry classes, load of useless rubbish. I guess I need to see if I've got my old third year chemistry textbook somewhere.

I think when he's done that with any diligence and attention, Nicholas Gunn can answer his own questions.

For the record this "smooth shiny avocado green with light bloom patina" is one of the more common used by fakers, because it is popular with collectors as it looks nice in a spotlit display. The green is achived by several reagents. I think the bloom is done with a slurry of cat litter, at least I have had some good results with it.

Are3 the TimeLine, Catawiki and Gunn-collection razors from the same workshop? It is possible, the Catawiki one has a different looking patina and the irion is in different condition, but then, if the TimeLine consigner's information is correct, the workshop was in production at least forty years ago, so the iron could be looking like this by now.