February 2019 – Page 3 – The History Blog

Year of Four Emperors coin hoard found in Warwickshire

February 18, 2019

Ancient, Treasures

A hoard of Roman coins in a small clay pot has been found in South Warwickshire. There are 78 coins in the collection, all silver denarii, in decent but not great condition. This is the second Roman coin hoard unearthed in Warwickshire since 2015. The first was larger, containing 440 silver denarii stashed in a large clay pot and buried in what is now Edge Hill, but what makes this one unique is that its coins date to 68-69 A.D., from the end of the reign of the Nero through the infamous Year of the Four Emperors.

The overthrow of Nero and his consequent suicide threw the empire into chaos. Competing generals vied for the throne, and coup followed coup installing Galba, Otho and Vitellius successively as emperors for a few months apiece. The civil wars ended when Vespasian became emperor in July of 69 A.D. and founded the Flavian dynasty that would rule Rome for 27 years.

Wars are expensive things and private armies don’t fight just for the principle. Galba found this out from day one, as he’d been acclaimed emperor by the Praetorian Guard who had been promised by their calculating leaders monetary reward for their support, something they had developed a taste for under the Julio-Claudians. But Galba had no intention of paying for the loyalty of his own guard, and with the imperial treasury in the doldrums, the coins he struck weren’t going to line the pockets of soldiers.

Seven months later, Galba was a stabbed and decapitated corpse and Otho, who had bought 23 Praetorians to secure Galba’s fate, was emperor. He couldn’t afford to buy the loyalty, even temporary, of the army of Germania Inferior, however, so three months later he was dead and Vitellius, commander of said army was emperor. He got to enjoy a whole eight months as emperor thanks to that support before he was defeated by Vespasian and the legions of the east.

With this constant turmoil, competing armies, supremely self-interested parties looking to benefit from their selection of one or another candidate for the throne, the emperors made as much use as possible of their minting powers. Yet, surviving coins from this period are exceedingly rare in Britain. The 78 examples found in the clay pot are the largest single collection of coins from the Year of the Four Emperors ever discovered.

The hoard has been declared official Treasure and experts from the British Museum have assessed its market value at £62,000. The local museum closest to the find site, Market Hall Museum in Warwick gets first crack at acquiring the hoard. It is applying for grants, throwing fundraising events and soliciting donations now.

Councillor Dave Reilly, Portfolio Holder for Environment, Heritage and Culture says:

“This is an amazingly important find for Warwickshire and our Roman past. Bringing the hoard back to the county and the Market Hall Museum will mean that Warwickshire’s residents can enjoy them for generations to come. The international significance of some of the coins in this hoard will increase visitors not only to Warwick, but the wider county, which can only contribute to our key objective of making the Warwickshire economy vibrant.”

Still life thought to be fake Van Gogh is real

February 17, 2019

Modern(ish), Museums

A still life painting long thought to be a fake has been authenticated as a genuine work by Vincent van Gogh by experts from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Still Life with Fruit and Chestnuts has been in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco since it was donated by collectors Bruno and Sadie Adriani in 1960. It is unsigned, but an inscription on the back of the painting describes it as “Nature mort, peint par Vincent van Gogh.” Anyone can write anything on the back of a canvas, however, and it doesn’t make it so.

The main sticking point was with the date it was created, which at the time of the donation was believed to be 1884 when Van Gogh was in Nuenen. The coloring was off that period, so experts disputed its authenticity and the painting of two pears and an apple among chestnuts was not included in two of the standard catalogues of the artist’s work and again in a third published in 2013. The Fine Arts Museum mostly chose not to display it, although it has been exhibited for several years at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum

For the past two years, Van Gogh Museum scholars have made a painstaking technical and stylistic investigation into the still life, as well as a thorough search through the historical record.

Specialists at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam have now accepted it as authentic. They determined that the canvas and the paints match Van Gogh’s work. Stylistically, it is regarded as fitting in with the still lifes which the artist made in Paris between October and December 1886.

The painting’s provenance can now be traced. There is reference to “pears and chestnuts” in an 1890 inventory, compiled shortly after Van Gogh’s death, with the word “Bernard” added. This is assumed to refer to his friend Emile Bernard. Bernard’s mother sold a work with that title (and the dimensions of the San Francisco picture) to the Parisian dealer Ambroise Vollard in 1899.

The first husband of Sadie acquired the picture in 1922. Sadie, an American artist, later married Bruno Adriani, a German lawyer and cultural official, and they emigrated to America in the 1930s.

Researchers also found a little surprise lurking underneath the fruits and nuts: the canvas was reused so the still life is actually not just an authentic Van Gogh, but two in one. Infrared reflectography found a portrait underneath the visible painting. It’s of a woman wearing a scarf and was likely made shortly before Van Gogh left Antwerp for Paris.

The freshly authenticated Still Life with Fruit and Chestnuts will celebrate its recognition with a trip to Frankfurt this fall. It will be loaned to the Städel Museum for the exhibition Making Van Gogh: A German Love Story which runs from October 23rd until February 16th 2020.

P.S. – I watched At Eternity’s Gate today and thought it was excellent, very evocatively filmed, especially how they shot Vincent-eye-view scenes. Willem Dafoe’s performance was understated and real. I found it so much more genuine and plausible that the than the tortured artist scenery-chewing of Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life which bears no relation, imo, to the Vincent of his correspondence.

I fell for a “Swiss Private Collection” lie, dammit

February 16, 2019

Ancient, Looting, Museums

My only excuse, and it’s a terrible one that you should throw back in my face in disgust, is that the Metropolitan Museum of Art fell for it too. Had they accepted a fraudulent ownership record starring a Swiss private collector a few years back I would have laughed mirthlessly at the very idea of it, but the sensitivity to potentially looted artifacts is so much higher now that museums and auction houses have been dragged kicking and screaming into giving a damn by source countries creating legal and PR nightmares for them. That such a recent, high-profile, much-publicized sale could be a looted artifact with phony papers is an ugly testament to how deep the rot runs in the antiquities market.

In September 2017, the Met announced the acquisition of what is without question the most beautiful, perfectly-preserved and uniquely rich cartonnage coffin I’ve ever seen. Made from layers of linen, gesso and resin, covered in gilding front and back and lined with sheets of silver foil inside the lid, the mummiform coffin was the final resting place of Late Ptolemaic official Nedjemankh, a priest of Heryshef in Heracleopolis Magna.

The gilded coffin of Nedjemankh went on display immediately in the museum’s Egyptian Art gallery, and soon got a dedicated exhibition that ran from July 2018 until Tuesday, February 12th. Or at least it was meant to. There was supposed to be an exhibition tour beginning on February 22nd. No longer. I don’t know exactly which day, but the coffin was taken off display this week.

On Friday the museum announced that it was returning the coffin to Egypt because the Manhattan’s DA Office had found evidence that the Swiss private collection and legal export document from 1971 were nothing but happy horseshit conjured up by traffickers in looted antiquities. Not only was it not legally exported in 1971, it didn’t leave Egypt until 2011 and I don’t need to tell you the circumstances were very, very far from legal.

Notwithstanding the representations that the coffin had been exported from Egypt in 1971, recent evidence suggests it was looted from Egypt in 2011. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said, “Stewards of the world’s most important artifacts have a duty to hold their acquisitions to the highest level of scrutiny. Following my Office’s investigation, this beautiful piece of ancient Egyptian history will soon be returned to its rightful place. Our Antiquities Trafficking Unit will continue to root out stolen antiquities in our fight to stop the looting of historic sites and the trade of stolen artifacts around the world.”

The seller was a Paris dealer named Christophe Kunicki. The Met is less than pleased with him having paid 3.5 million euros (just under $4 million) for the coffin in July of 2017, just six years after it was stolen from Egypt. This character has yet to comment on the fraudulent sale and the Met plans to consider “all means,” according to spokesman Kenneth Weine, for the recovery of the $4 million they were conned out of. There is no word on any criminal action that might be taken against him, and there probably won’t be.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today it will review and revise its acquisitions process. Max Hollein, Director of The Met, said, “Our museum must be a leader among our peers in the respect for cultural property and in the rigor and transparency of the policy and practices that we follow. We will learn from this event—specifically I will be leading a review of our acquisitions program—to understand what more can be done to prevent such events in the future.”

Here’s one revision to any museum or collector’s acquisition policy that needs to be carved in stone from now on: buy nothing purporting to come from Swiss private collections. It’s a scam every damn time. The Met apologized to Egypt profusely and abjectly, as well it should, and I do the same to you, as well I should. I can’t believe I was so thoroughly duped by the oldest lie in the book, one I have mocked and excoriated ad nauseum in this very blog a million times before.

Narcissus fresco found in Leda fresco house

February 15, 2019

Ancient

Another high-quality fresco has been discovered in the house where the fresco depicting the myth of Leda and the Swan was discovered last November in Pompeii. This one was found in the atrium and depicts the myth of Narcissus. The vain hunter is depicted staring at his handsome visage reflected in the pool of water beneath him. He is entranced and cannot be budged despite his hunting dog’s tugging desperately at his robe. Behind them is a winged youth, likely a representation of Eros, son and frequent messenger of Aphrodite who in her guise as Nemesis punished the love-rejecting Narcissus by making him falling in love with his own image.

When Leda was discovered in a bedroom of the villa late last year, archaeologists were concerned that the structure would be endangered by further excavation. The original intent of the dig was consolidation of the excavation fronts along Via Vesuvio in the Regio V neighborhood of the ancient city which has proved an archaeological gold mine beyond even the stratospherically high standards of Pompeii. The slopes of the dig along the 1.8 mile front of Via Vesuvio had put pressure on the already unearthed structures.

The exceptional quality and preservation of the frescoes of Leda and Priapus found in the home motivated the team to remodel of the slopes of the excavation fronts and stabilize the ancient structures. They were then able to proceed with the excavation of the villa and the fresco of Leda. On the other side of the bedroom they unearthed floor-to-ceiling frescoes of intense color, deep red and ochre backdrops to elaborate border decorations and the central panel of Narcissus.

Love and the sweetness of the senses, in all of their varied forms, ooze from the rooms of this elegant dwelling that, even in the entrance hall, welcomed guests with the vigorous and auspicious image of Priapus, which was also documented some months ago and is comparable to the image in the nearby House of the Vettii.

The entire Leda room is characterised by sophisticated Fourth Style decorations, with delicate floral embellishments, interspersed by griffins with cornucopia, winged cupids, still lifes and scenes of combat between animals. The harmony of these exquisite designs even extended to the ceiling, which completely collapsed under the weight of the lapilli, and whose fragments were recovered by restorers and used to reconstruct the story.

Of particular note in the atrium of Narcissus is the still visible trace of the stairs which lead to the upper floor, but above all the rediscovery of a dozen glass containers, eight amphorae and a bronze funnel in the space under the stairs, which was used for storage. A bronze situla (a liquid container) was also found next to the impluvium.

Pompeii Superintendent Massimo Osanna notes that the decorative motifs appear to be thematically connected so that beauty, sensuality and the pleasures of life would accompany the residents and visitors from room to room. The dramatic height of the first floor walls and the frescoes covering them attest to what a luxurious home this was. The colors are so vibrant that it was likely constructed shortly before Pompeii’s sudden cataclysmic demise.

How Victorians trolled Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2019

Modern(ish)

The tradition of giving cards to loved ones on Valentine’s Day in Britain was already established in the 1700s. Handmade billet doux were sent anonymously or hinting at the identity of the lover. By the 1820s, 200,000 valentines were given yearly in London. That number exploded when reforms to the Royal Mail ushered in a uniform rate of one penny to send letters of less than half an ounce from and to any post office in the British Isles. The Uniform Penny Post was introduced in 1840. By the late 1840s, 400,000 valentines were sent annually in London. By the 1860s it was 800,000. The mail was rife with lace, flowers, birdies, cupids and rhymes, motifs still now associated with Valentine’s Day.

Stationers and cardmakers took full advantage of the advent of inexpensive color printing, offering a wide range of valentines for the romance-mad, from ornate cards on expensive textured papers to simpler prints, some serious, some schmaltzy, some goofy. But with the day mired in saccharine sentimentality, bad poetry and even worse attempts at wit, some cardmakers took the opportunity to appeal to a related and woefully underserved market: people who wanted to send anonymous burns for a penny.

Vinegar Valentines were acidic where valentines were sugary, cheap cardstock took the place of fancy lace embosses, crude inking spilled over the lines of ugly caricatures of romantic motifs. One-liners and short poems delivered rejection, spite, insults and mockery, and not just to would-be lovers, but to friends and acquaintances of all categories. In short, they’re great fun.

The Royal Pavilion & Museums in Brighton has a fine collection of these bizarro-world valentines, and thanks to their digital media bank, you can apply their acid as an oddly soothing balm on the wounds inflicted by all the Cupid’s arrows zinging around today.

The Marriage Sucks Burn: