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Creator of much-mocked Romania statue accused of fraud
BUCHAREST, Feb 15, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – A Romanian sculptor has been charged
with fraud after a much-mocked sculpture of the Emperor Trajan — and ten
others — turned out to be made of brass and not bronze as claimed, police
said Monday.
Ioan Bolborea, 65, is accused of selling the statues to the Bucharest
municipality and thereby defrauding it of 3.7 million euros ($4.5 million), a
police spokesman told AFP.
One of the statues, a depiction of a nude Roman emperor Trajan holding a
she-wolf in his arms, was widely mocked after its installation in front of
Bucharest’s National History Museum in 2012.
The artwork, based on a model by the sculptor Vasile Gorduz (1931-2008),
portrays the genesis of the Romanian people from the merging of the Romans
and the Dacians, with the wolf as a symbolic animal.
The strange posture and the nudity of the male character, as well as the
appearance of the wolf with a scarf recalling the Dacians’ flag around its
neck, prompted a wave of mockery at the time.
Online critics quipped it was a monument to Bucharest’s stray dogs, and
even the museum’s curator admitting it was of “doubtful artistic quality”.
Suspicions about the material used were raised in 2017 when the statue was
vandalised and the tail of the she-wolf was broken.
When trying to fix it, experts noticed that the statue was made of brass,
not bronze.
Contacted by AFP, Bolborea refused to comment on the charges.
The investigation started following several complains from the Bucharest
municipality regarding the quality of Bolborea’s work, which at the time he
rejected as “nonsense”.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1912HRS