Tiara of Saitaferne

The Saitaphernes Tiara is a golden headdress, which allegedly belonged to the Skythenherrscher Saitaphernes, acquired in 1896 from the Louvre in Paris, which has proved in reality to be a forgery, produced in Odessa jeweler Israel Ruchomowskij (* 1864 in Mazyr, † 1934 in Paris ).

On April 1, 1896, the Directorate of the Louvre announced that it had acquired a tiara Skythenherrscher Saitaphernes for the amount of 200,000 gold francs. Was the Greek inscription on the Tiara ". , The Council and the citizens of Olbia in awe of the great and invincible King Saitaphernes " The purchase was approved by the French Parliament.

In reality, the tiara was made in 1895 by a jeweler from Odessa, Israel Ruchomowskij, two booksellers to order. The jeweler was awarded only 1800 rubles.

The brothers Hochman dealt in Odessa with colonial trade. However, they hoped to make a brilliant business with the excavated Scythian gold treasures. Since the illegal excavations in Ochakiv brought no appreciable profits, they decided to order counterfeit goldsmith Ruchomowskij. They used his gullibility of

The management of the Louvre protested for several years the authenticity of the tiara, despite the doubts raised the archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler. For he had noticed that some fragments of the tiara repeated motifs from other known Scythian art works.

Finally the matter was well known in Odessa. Ruchomowskij came to Paris and brought as evidence of his drawings. He declared his willingness to repeat any fragment of the work freely. He escaped a fine because he has not offered the work for sale, but only the tiara created to order. For his championship, he was even awarded a gold medal of the Paris Salon of decorative art.

He brought his family from Odessa and remained in Paris until his death. The Tiara applies to art history as an example of the perfect fake.