# Kouros

> Unidentified sculptor, Greek Archaic or modern - About 530 BCE, or twentieth century. The museum has published both possibilities as alternatives and has not chosen between them.
> Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/unidentified-sculptor-getty-kouros/getty-kouros/
> Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-05

## Tombstone

- **Artist:** Unidentified sculptor, Greek Archaic or modern
- **Date:** About 530 BCE, or twentieth century. The museum has published both possibilities as alternatives and has not chosen between them.
- **Medium:** Dolomitic marble, measured by X-ray diffraction at about 88 per cent dolomite and 12 per cent calcite, with the quarry source identified as Thasos at about 90 per cent probability
- **Dimensions:** Over life-size. Height about 206 cm, width about 54.6 cm
- **Object type:** Sculpture
- **Period:** Greek Archaic, or twentieth century
- **Current location:** J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Villa, Malibu, California. Removed from public display in 2018 and held in storage.
- **Attribution:** unknown

## Summary

An over life-size marble youth in the Archaic Greek manner, standing with the left foot forward and the arms at the sides, bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1985 for around ten million dollars. Its label at the Getty Villa read: Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery. There is no other label like it in a major museum, and it is the most honest sentence in this record.The statue arrived in Los Angeles in seven pieces with a Swiss provenance going back to 1930, supported by letters. The letters were fabricated: one supposedly written in 1952 carries a postcode that did not exist until 1972, and another of 1955 refers to a bank account that was not opened until 1963. The scientific case for antiquity rested on de-dolomitisation, the leaching of magnesium from the surface of a dolomitic marble, argued by the geologist Stanley Margolis to require centuries and natural conditions. In the early 1990s Miriam Kastner produced the same alteration in a laboratory.Nineteen invited specialists met in Athens in May 1992 and could not agree. The sculpture came off view in 2018. Nobody has ever named an ancient workshop for it, and nobody has ever proved a modern one.

## Provenance

Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it.

- **1930-1983** Dr Jean Lauffenberger, Geneva (claimed) `[disputed]` (asserted collection history)
  The documents supplied with the statue traced it to the Geneva collection of Dr Jean Lauffenberger, said to have bought it from a Greek dealer in 1930, and included letters of the early 1950s. The Getty's own later investigation established that these letters were forgeries: a 1952 letter attributed to Ernst Langlotz carries a postcode that did not exist until 1972, and a 1955 letter refers to a bank account not opened until 1963. This link is recorded because it was the basis of the purchase, and it is graded disputed because its documentary support is known to be false. Nothing is established about the statue's whereabouts before 1983.
- **before 1983-1983** Reported chain through Calabria to Gianfranco Becchina `[disputed]` (reported trade)
  Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino reported in 2011 that a man named Fernando Onore sold the statue to an intermediary in Calabria for an undisclosed sum, and that the intermediary sold it to Gianfranco Becchina for one hundred thousand dollars. This is a published account of a claim made after the 1992 colloquium. No finding has been made, and the same source states that whether Becchina knew the object's status is unknown.
- **1983-1985** Gianfranco Becchina, Basel, on deposit at the Getty `[documented]` (loan for approval)
  In September 1983 the Getty's antiquities curator Jiri Frel took the statue on loan for approval from the Basel dealer Gianfranco Becchina, together with the provenance documents. It arrived in seven pieces and was held at Malibu while the acquisition was considered.
- **1985-present** J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu `[documented]` (acquisition)
  Acquisition approved in January 1985. The price is reported as 9.5 million dollars by the Trafficking Culture project and as 10 million by other accounts; the figures have not been reconciled and both are recorded here. Federico Zeri, a founding trustee, had argued that the statue was a forgery and should not be bought, was overruled, and left the board in 1984. First exhibited October 1986 and publicly announced in 1987 by the curator Marion True. Displayed for years with the label Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery. Removed from display in April 2018 after a reinstallation of the Getty Villa and held in storage, viewable by appointment. Accession number 85.AA.40.

## Auction results

Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so.

- **** , 
  - This statue has never been offered at public auction. It was acquired privately from a dealer, and the reported price is a negotiated purchase price rather than a hammer price, so there is no premium to separate from it. The reported figure is not consistent between sources: the Trafficking Culture research project gives 9.5 million US dollars for the acquisition approved in January 1985, while other accounts give 10 million. Both are recorded and neither is preferred. A separate reported figure of 100,000 US dollars appears in Felch and Frammolino's account of an earlier transfer to the dealer; it is an unverified claim about a private sale and is not a market price for this object.

## Open questions

- Is the statue ancient or modern? Nineteen specialists convened in Athens in 1992 could not agree, and no evidence published since has settled it.
- If modern, who carved it and where? Claims reported by Felch and Frammolino in 2011 name a seller and an intermediary in Calabria; no finding has been made and the account is unverified.
- What did the Getty actually pay? Trafficking Culture gives 9.5 million dollars for the acquisition approved in January 1985; other accounts give 10 million. The two figures have not been reconciled.
- Has the museum ever formally amended the catalogue entry, or only removed the object from display? The sources consulted record the 2018 removal and no change of attribution.
- Where did the dolomitic marble of the comparison torso come from, and does it in fact share a block with the statue? Spier proposed it; the technical comparison at the Getty pointed away from it.
- What are the Getty's own published dimensions and full condition report? The museum's collection page could not be read by any automated method used for this record, and the measurements given here come from an aggregated database.
- Who was Dr Jean Lauffenberger, and did he exist as described? The Geneva collection is the load-bearing claim of a provenance whose supporting letters are forged, and no independent record of it is cited in the sources consulted.

## Sources

- [1] Trafficking Culture (University of Glasgow), case study 'Getty Kouros'. Research-project account of the 1983 loan for approval from Gianfranco Becchina to Jiri Frel, the January 1985 approval at 9.5 million dollars, the 1987 public announcement by Marion True, the Lauffenberger provenance and the finding that the letters were forgeries, the de-dolomitisation argument and its refutation, Spier's 1990 torso, the 1992 Athens colloquium of nineteen experts, the museum label, and the claims reported by Felch and Frammolino in 2011. <https://traffickingculture.org/encyclopedia/case-studies/getty-kouros/>
- [2] Wikipedia, 'Getty kouros'. Tertiary source, used for the marble composition of 88 per cent dolomite and 12 per cent calcite by X-ray diffraction, the Thasos identification at ninety per cent probability, the arrival in seven pieces, the 1972 postcode and 1963 bank account, Stanley Margolis and Miriam Kastner, Federico Zeri's resignation, the colloquium dates of 25 to 27 May 1992, the museum label, the 2018 removal, and the bibliography (Kokkou 1993; Herz and Waelkens 1988; Spier, Burlington Magazine 132 (1990), pp. 623-631; True, Burlington Magazine 129, no. 1006 (1987), pp. 3-11; Kimmelman, New York Times, 4 August 1991). Flagged for replacement with the colloquium proceedings and the Burlington articles. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_kouros>
- [3] Wikimedia Commons file page for the J. Paul Getty Museum's own open-content photograph of the kouros, accession 85.AA.40. Read as wikitext: carries the Getty's own descriptive essay on the kouros type, arete and kalokagathia and the Theognis quotation, and the CC0 licence tag under which the museum publishes the image. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kouros_-_Getty_Museum_(85.AA.40).jpg>
- [4] Wikidata item Q5554723, Getty Kouros. Tertiary aggregated record, used only for the height of 206.1 cm, the width of 54.6 cm and the inventory number 85.AA.40, because the museum's own collection page could not be read by any automated method attempted for this record. Flagged for replacement with the Getty's published measurements. <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5554723>
- [5] J. Paul Getty Museum, collection page for the kouros, object 103VNP. The canonical museum record. The page is a JavaScript application which returns no catalogue content to any automated fetch attempted here, including direct request, the Wayback Machine and the museum's linked-data endpoints, so no claim in this record rests on it. <https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103VNP>

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