A male figure inspired by Levantine art.

Male figure inspired by Levantine art. “Lebanese Mountain Figure”
Modern production inspired by archaeology, Sidon, Lebanon, circa 1908.
Bronze.
Joseph Durighello Workshops.
In good condition.
Reproduced in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as “Forgery figure,” inv. no. 25.96.
Provenance: by descent, former collection of archaeologist Paul Gaudin, who resided in Smyrna between 1894 and 1905 and was the first excavator of the sites at Yortan and Aphrodisias. See the catalog for the Rouillac auction, Artigny, June 19–20, 2022, pp. 174–181.
Measurements: 25 cm high.

Male bronze figure, with an elongated, frontal body, a beard, hair rendered through incisions, and arms bent forward. The piece displays a marked archaic stylization, with a schematic face, narrow torso, loincloth, and straight legs—features that visually recall models from the ancient Near East, although its classification should be situated within the context of modern, archaeologically inspired productions.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a comparable figure, cataloged as “Forgery figure,” dated to around 1908 and attributed to a group of copper objects known as “Lebanese Mountain Figures.” According to the museum, this group was already the subject of doubt at the beginning of the 20th century; in 1933, a commission from the Metropolitan itself declared the authenticity of its specimen to be doubtful, and subsequent scientific studies confirmed that the so-called “1908 group” was produced in a modern workshop in Sidon, in present-day Lebanon.

Although these pieces are not antiquities from the ancient Near East, they are of considerable historical interest, as they document archaeological tastes, the antiquities market, and the mechanisms of collection formation in the early 20th century. They also allow us to study how ancient models were interpreted, imitated, or visually reconstructed at a time of great European fascination with the East and the earliest Mediterranean civilizations.

Beyond its modern status, the work retains special interest due to its connection to the former collection of Paul Gaudin, a prominent figure in the archaeology of Asia Minor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its provenance, combined with its connection to the workshops of Joseph Durighello and the parallel piece held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, places the work within a particularly revealing chapter of the history of modern archaeological collecting.

The figure stands out for its strong frontal presence, its greenish patina, and the expressive power of its synthetic style. Its value lies precisely in this intersection of archaeology, the art market, historical forgery, and modern production inspired by antiquity.