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Until quite recently the forgeries of Greek and South Italian Greek pottery was of an inferior quality.

 

Such as these always sold well on eBay even though they bear  no resemblance at all to classical pottery!

 

The seller had the idiosyncratic audacity to sell all four within a few days of each other; they are all by the same hand.

 

 






 

And these sold for a lot of money...thousands of dollars!

 

 




 

And these are laughable; except that they also sold for a lot of money! A lot of money given that they are not even pretty fakes.

I did report these sales to eBay but they did not feel able to intervene.

 

 





 

Maybe, if you are new to this, you need to see an example of a genuine one more or less side by side. 

 

 




 

It is not only the fantasty pieces and the more realistic fakes that you must think about, it's also the heavily repainted pottery .

 

   From Jeff

January 2005

Would you give me an opinion about the re-painting on this piece by dawing it on the picture?

 

As below, in my opinion.

What do others think?

 



 

      From Ken

The piece itself looks just fine, but the painting is not original. 

Looking at the other items that show up in his sales history, the lekythos is also re-painted.  The "squat lekythos" is re-painted as well.  You will note in the photos that while much of the simple design is faded in appearance, the face is sharp and bright.

 

From these photo's its hard to tell where the original paint ends and the new begins.  Much of it is re-painted.  Just from looking at the photo it is hard to tell how much, but I am sure that in person you can get a better idea from close naked-eye examination.  Even in the photo you can see distinct differences between the top of the piece, the middle, and the base.  Also, you will note that the frond is completely different in color and composition from the point above the hand.  The paint below is original, all above modern.  It is easiest to simply compare the paint from one spot to another, and you will find the differences. 

The piece is genuine, but has been re-painted.  This is not unusual, especially so for items which were collected in the Victorian era, in which it was seen as 'restoration'.  Today, most are content to 'preserve'.

 

From Geof

The under-surface is a grey dull color.

The paint bubbles off in the area arround the Black Sea where much of this is comming.

The Sicilian finds have more of the paint because of the moisture.

 

 

 

 

 

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