Stone head. Carved limestone, forgery attributed to Moses Wilhelm Shapira. [Palestine, 2nd half of 19th century].
Moses Wilhelm Shapira (1830-1884), an antiquities collector and dealer who lived in Jerusalem in the second half of the 19th century. He was known as a purveyor of fake artifacts as a result of two famous cases - he faked a collection of Moabite stone artifacts, and scrolls that were supposedly discovered in the Dead Sea region in 1883. The Hebrew text of the scrolls hinted at a different version of Deuteronomy. Tests carried out by The British Museum researchers and other researchers, reached the conclusion that the scrolls were forged. The scrolls were announced as fake. Shapira left London and committed suicide in 1884.
The stone head offered here belongs to a group of stone sculptures and reliefs attributed to Shapira (named "group B"). This group contains limestone sculptures which were covered with artificial patina in different colors, probably, inspired by Nabataean sculptures from sites in Transjordan. The group of fake artifacts consists, mainly of men's heads. The sculpting of faces was done in schematic lines: all have a high forehead, and faces resemble each other as if created according to an identical model.
The stone head offered here was exhibited in the exhibition "Truly Fake - Moses Wilhelm Shapira Master Forger" (see list of lenders to the exhibition).
Height: 31 cm, width: 15 cm. Fair condition. Cracks, restored breaks. Missing pieces.
For further information see:
1. Fakes and forgeries, from collections in Israel. Exhibition catalogue, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel-Aviv, 1989. Curator: Gusta Lehrer-Jacobson. pp.23-24.
2. Truly Fake, Wilhelm Moses Shapira Master Forger. Exhibition catalogue, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2000.
Provenance: Collection of Dotan family, Jerusalem