Reactions
In the end, Greenhalgh's artistic ability was downplayed. Detective Sgt Rapley of the Metropolitan Police Arts and Antiquities Unit said "Looking at them now I'm not sure the items would fool anyone, it was the credibility of the provenances that went with them." Despite this claim the list of experts and institutions who were fooled is long, and includes the Tate Modern, the British Museum, the Henry Moore Institute, and auction houses Bonhams, Christies, Sothebys and other experts from "Leeds to Vienna." The Faun was displayed at the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam; while the Amarna Princess went on display at the South Bank Hayward Art Gallery, in an exhibition opened by the Queen. Other unnamed galleries, and various private collectors were fooled as well.
In fact, institutions proclaimed the works and their achievement in obtaining them. The Art Institute of Chicago described The Faun sculpture as a "major rediscovery" and included it in their "definitive" exhibition on Gauguin. Bolton Museum hailed their purchase of the Amarna Princess as "a coup," calling George Greenhalgh "a nice old man who had no idea of the significance of what he owned."
After the trial, Bolton Museum scrambled to distance itself and described itself as "blameless" insisting that it had followed established procedure. The presiding judge, William Morris, exonerated the institution and any Council staff involved, preferring to focus on what he saw as "misapplied" talent and an "ambitious conspiracy;" while the Metropolitan Police Arts and Antiquities Unit would only admit that Greenhalgh had succeeded "to a degree". However, the general public was notably more cynical in its reaction, being unimpressed by what they perceived as the experts' incompetence, and the law's heavy-handedness. Richard Falkiner, the antiquities expert from Bonhams said, "I took one look at the relief and said 'don't make me laugh'...It was an obvious fake. It was far too freshly cut, was made of the wrong stone and was stylistically wrong for the period."
Read more about this topic: Shaun Greenhalgh
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