Fake Pre-Columbian Bowl
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GUEST:
I bought this piece in 2002 in a gallery in Seattle. I've spent the last 30 years or so going to South America, particularly the Andean countries, and so I recognized it, sort of the design anyway, from museums that I'd been to, and so I decided just to go ahead and buy it.
APPRAISER:
I assume that what you'd like to find out is...
GUEST:
If it is real, whether or not it represents the Tairona people, which is in the northern part of Colombia.
APPRAISER:
Okay, the first thing we have is this authentication, which here it's in Spanish, and over there is the English translation. Now, there's a couple of things that really caught my eye on this. First of all, the date, which is down here, was 400 B.C. to 1500 A.D., so almost 2,000 year span, and the individual that did the authenticity is either part of the archaeological apparatus of the Colombian government or a private individual. Did you indicate what you paid
for it?
GUEST:
I paid $1,800 for it.
APPRAISER:
$1,800, okay. In looking at this, looking at the clay, looking at the general configuration, I feel quite certain it was made in the mountains in Tairona. We have four animals on the rim, and they're well modeled, beautifully executed.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
And here on the inside, we have a human figure, which you can also see up here. Now, when we think about the authenticity of a pre-Columbian piece, I can tell you this is very atypical to have these four animals up on the rim.
GUEST:
I wondered that.
APPRAISER:
It's very unusual to have the figure down inside that we see here. The other thing...(tapping)
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
You hear I tap that?
GUEST:
Right. Right.
APPRAISER:
When you hear that, it's a very high ring. When these things are fired, they're fired in pit kilns.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Where they put the coals in, and there's only a certain amount of temperature that they can create, so it's a low fired process. When you bang on it like this with a ring, you get a high ring.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Unfortunately, I think that means we've got an electric kiln.
GUEST:
I wondered that.
APPRAISER:
It would seem to be too perfect. You're exactly right. And so examining all the documentation in this, we have to conclude that this piece is not authentic.
GUEST:
I wondered, great.
APPRAISER:
So I know you're out $1,800 and that's not a pleasant thing for anybody, and so I'm sorry about that. I can tell you that the value of this now, this would be on a retail basis, would be more in the $200 to $300 range on the decorative market. If this thing were real, I mean, this would be so rare and so unusual, I would appraise this between $6,000 and $8,000.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Appraisal Details
We agree! Following up with that Seattle gallery, we found out the gallery had exhibited the bowl in 2002 for another dealer who had vouched for its authenticity. According to the the gallery, this dealer has so far refused to fully reimburse them (after they reimbursed our guest). "The bowl is permanently off the market," said a gallery representative.
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