A Tale of Two Sarcophagi: Forged and Genuine at Hammond Castle (20 min)

Presenters

Robert Cohon, Kansas City Art Institute

Abstract

Largely between 1927 and 1930, millionaire-inventor John Jay Hammond Jr. purchased imperial and late antique Roman funerary sculptures in Rome for his pseudomedieval castle in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Many are genuine, some forged. Bodel has published the funerary inscriptions online, but despite the collection’s importance, the sculpted works remain underpublished or unpublished.

An analysis of two of the sarcophagi—one genuine and one forged—incorporates metrology, statistics, and traditional visual analysis to reveal unexpected, significant information about the manufacture of them and, in turn, of others.

Relying on a 19th-century photograph, Kranz interpreted the peculiar sequence and iconography of seasons on a tetrarchic child sarcophagus in Gloucester as an indifference to their canonical presentation. Close observation now establishes that two pieces of marble constituted the sarcophagus’s chest and that the artist, compensating for the narrow gap between them, cleverly altered the seasons’ typical presentation. Following this clue, further study documents additional new examples of this type of piecemeal manufacture, first researched by Immerzeel and Herrmann. Measurements—the study of which is often passed over—also reveal much about the sarcophagus’s manufacture: a reliance on large basic units of Roman measure that can now be documented on other child sarcophagi.

A similar metrological analysis helps reveal that the chest of another sarcophagus in Gloucester is ancient, but as was typical, a 20th-century forger recarved its plain surface for higher profit. The particular way that he integrated the iconography eight-century C.E. iconography with the chest’s ancient breaks links it to another recarved sarcophagus in Gloucester, and, in turn, several other forged reliefs there—all one atelier’s work. Archival research establishes that Armando Pacifici sold these as genuine, probably commissioning them for Hammond.

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