Amarna Princess

The Amarna Princess, sometimes referred to as the "Bolton Amarna Princess", is a statue forged by British art forger Shaun Greenhalgh and sold by his father to Bolton Museum for £440,000 in 2003. Based on the Amarna art-style of ancient Egypt, the purchase of the Amarna Princess was feted as a "coup" by the museum and it remained on display for three years. However, in November 2005, Greenhalgh was brought under suspicion by Scotland Yard's Arts and Antiquities Unit, and the statue was impounded for further examination in March 2006. It is now displayed as a part of an exhibition of fakes and forgeries.

In 1999, following some early successes, the Greenhalghs began their most ambitious forgery project yet. They bought the 1892 sale catalogue of the contents of Silverton Park, Devon, the home of the 4th Earl of Egremont, George Wyndham. While the fourth Earl was not known as a collector, previous earls had been: the Praxitelean "Leconfield Head", stands out even among the Greek antiquities at Petworth. One of the Wyndhams who acquired ancient sculptures from Rome might just have obtained, along with other pieces, the Amarna Princess. It was quite plausible then that George Wyndham had amassed a distinguished collection in his own new-built mansion at Silverton. Certainly the auction catalogue notes extended to pages.

Among the lots in the sale were a group lot comprising "a draped figure of a female, five marble statuettes and eight Egyptian figures." The vagueness of the catalogue description was not too surprising for the time, and if any such actual Amarna art had been there, it may well have remained unrecognised. Shaun Greenhalgh was a professional antique dealer and meticulous researcher, and must have been well aware of this. While he did not appear to have had access to the internet he was well used to the trade catalogues and art books, and is known to have worked from photographs. Further to the item's natural obscurity, there are only two other similar statuettes existing in the world. These are held in the Louvre and the Penn Museum.

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