say it with pie

Fake. Big fat fakety-fake.

Controversy has surrounded the iconic marble Cycladic harp player at the Metropolitan Museum since 2000, when archaeologist (and Met staffer) Oscar White Muscarella questioned its authenticity in his book, The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures.

Soon after, British Royal Academy painter John Craxton came forward and told the press that in 1947, a shepherd from Crete named Angelos Koutsoupis confessed to him that he carved the figurine in the early 1940’s, submerged it in a riverbed for 6 months, and sold it to an antiques dealer. The dealer, Koutsoupis said, sent him a photo of a harp player figurine in the National Museum in Athens to copy. The Met refutes this story, saying that they have scientific evidence to back up its authenticity.

I am not qualified to make a call on whether it’s a forgery or not. I do not have access to records or scientific equipment. I was not hanging out with Angelos Koutsoupis in the 1940’s. I have, however, looked at a lot of Cycladic figurines in my time. Seeing the Met’s harp player in person last week was a bit of a revelation; there is something noticeably off about it.

Look at his sculpted arms, the articulation of his facial features, and the overall definition of the carving. Cycladic figurines usually have a unearthly elegance to them (which inspired modernist artists like Modigliani and Brancusi); this one is missing all the subtle detail and is rather beefy. These are definitely mistakes that a shepherd-forger working from a photograph might have made, perhaps thinking he could “improve” the style and make the harpist look more human.

And that is my partially informed take on things.