CRIME DOESN'T PAY when you neglect the cuneiform:

ARTFUL CODGERS

How a high-school dropout and his elderly parents fooled the world

Robert Fulford, National Post
Published: Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The fake Amarna Princess sculpture made by Shaun Greenhalgh that was bought by the Bolton Council for £439,767.ReutersThe fake Amarna Princess sculpture made by Shaun Greenhalgh that was bought by the Bolton Council for £439,767.

Shaun Greenhalgh, an Englishman whose furtive career has been unfolding in courtrooms, newspapers and museums for the last three months, may well be the most versatile art forger in history. He can do a convincing Gauguin, an 18th-century bronze portrait, a Barbara Hepworth sculpture or a broken chunk of Assyrian wall art. He finds it just as easy to do ancient Egyptian.

A high-school dropout at 16, Shaun taught himself painting, drawing, stone carving and several other techniques. Then, with the enthusiastic support of his family, he became an art criminal.

His story has been mostly ignored in North America because journalists here fail to see it as a saga of British craftsmanship and enterprise performing in a world where these qualities are insufficiently appreciated. In their lower-middle-class home at The Crescent, Bromley Cross, Bolton, Greater Manchester, Shaun's family has for many years operated a traditional cottage industry.

Alan Bennett should write the movie that must be made about them. Shaun, 46 years old, sounds like a failure-to-launch boy, living with his parents, from the stories Bennett has written for BBC radio. Shaun's Mom, Olive, 83, and Dad, George, 84, are both collaborators -- the Artful Codgers, one London newspaper calls them. Testifying in court, Mom claimed her work was purely routine, like making calls for Shaun because he's too shy to talk on the telephone.

[...]

After many successful years, and scores of sales, the Greenhalghs were caught out by that old devil hubris. Shaun, deeply impressed by his own talent, forgot that serious chicanery requires careful attention to detail. He sent the British Museum what was apparently an ancient Assyrian stone relief showing a soldier and horses with cuneiform writing. It looked great until someone noticed a minor spelling mistake in the writing and someone else said that the harness on the horses was from the wrong period.

The British Museum called Scotland Yard. ...

(Via Explorator 10.43.)