The Tiara of Saitaphernes
The golden crown that fooled the Louvre
Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
In 1896 the Louvre triumphantly bought a golden tiara as a priceless Scythian-Greek antiquity. It was in fact made a few years earlier by the Odessa goldsmith Israel Rouchomovsky — and the 1903 exposure became one of the great museum humiliations in history.
In 1896, the Louvre acquired a spectacular gold tiara for 200,000 francs, believing it a treasure presented to the Scythian king Saitaphernes by the Greek city of Olbia around the 3rd century BC. It was displayed as a crown jewel of the collection.
Doubts surfaced almost immediately — scholars noted that the tiara's ornament combined motifs from wildly different periods — but the museum defended its purchase for years. The scandal broke fully in 1903 when a Montmartre artist claimed authorship, and attention turned to an Odessa goldsmith, Israel Rouchomovsky.
Summoned to Paris, Rouchomovsky proved his case in the most direct way possible: he reproduced a section of the tiara from memory before the astonished authorities. He had made it only years earlier, commissioned by dealers who never told him it would be sold as an antiquity.
The affair humiliated the Louvre and became a landmark in the history of authentication — a cautionary tale about expert overconfidence and the appetite of great museums for spectacular acquisitions.