Product of the art market? The representation of silver corncobs at the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin
Fiche du document
2017
- handle: 10670/1.yyggys
- 0303-7495
Ce document est lié à :
http://www.redalyc.org/revista.oa
Bulletin de l'Institut français d'études andines
Mots-clés
Multidisciplinarias (Ciencias Sociales) silver forgery miniature metallurgy Robert StolperCiter ce document
Manuela Fischer et al., « Product of the art market? The representation of silver corncobs at the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin », Bulletin de l'Institut français d'études andines, ID : 10670/1.yyggys
Métriques
Partage / Export
Résumé
"In the 1960s two similar silver corncobs attributed to the Chimú-Inca period were sold by New York based art dealers to the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, now the Ethnologisches Museum, and to the Denver Art Museum. The composition of the Berlin piece shows the use of different alloys, suggesting the reuse of different pre-Columbian objects. Only the hard-solders used to join the different parts of the corncobs contain an amount of zinc that might indicate a modern intervention. The hypothesis of this article is that economic stability in the 1960s combined with the desire to restore Second World War losses in museums collections particularly in Germany paved the way for doubtable purchases including forgeries."