Great fakes #1: The Getty Kouros

A now famous Greek statue of youth was purchased by the trustees of the Getty museum from a Swiss dealer for 7 million dollars in 1983, the statue being in six pieces and pertaining to be from about 530 bce.

The statue has been carved in a flawed piece of marble and would have been unsalable to the ancient buyer once the flaw was noticed, it has been suggested that the flaw in the stone may have appeared late in the carving, the statue left at the side of a studio and practiced upon for a number of years by a number of different hands.

Only one other kouros shows no sign of being painted and tests on the stone showed proper chemical erosion only achieved over hundreds of years, unfortunately a few years later it was shown that if you rubbed potato mold on marble you could achieve the proper erosion in just 3 months.

Soon the documents which came with the kouros were found out to be fakes, with its provenance destroyed and a chemical test to explain its surface it was now up to experts in kouros to stylistically date it, ultimately it was considered to be an amalgamation of styles, not pure to anyone.

Worse still a known fake kouros torso came on the market which bore a strong resemblance to the Getty kouros.

All these years later the ultimate verdict is still out.