These texts essentially revolved around questions of “authenticity”: Was the bust – as Bode claimed – a work by the artistic genius Leonardo da Vinci or perhaps by someone in his workshop, or was it made by the British wax sculptor Richard Cockle Lucas in the mid-19th century? Had Wilhelm von Bode therefore made a correct or false decision about the acquisition? Generations of art historians have to the present day continued to rack their brains over the attribution of the Bust of Flora. More than 700 articles and essays were published in the international press and specialist art historical literature alone during the two years following the acquisition.
The ensuing art scandal that Bode stirred up in Europe was unprecedented in the history of the museums and to date has not been conclusively resolved. Wilhelm von Bode, general director of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen (Prussian Art Collections) and the founding director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (now the Bode-Museum), purchased the work in July 1909 for Berlin’s Skulpturensammlung (Sculpture Collection) – in the belief that it was a Leonardo original. There is hardly another museum acquisition made during the Wilhelmine Empire that aroused so much public attention as the wax Bust of Flora, portraying the Greek goddess of flowers. An Art Thriller Entwined with the Leonardo Research A bust of the goddess Flora, allegedly by Leonardo da Vinci, and acquired by Wilhelm von Bode in 1909, continues to keep art historians in suspense even today in what has developed into one of the most spectacular art controversies of the 20th century. An ARTE documentary is now dedicated to one of the exhibition’s most fascinating topics. This closure has also affected the special exhibition Plain Talk: About the History of the Bode-Museum, which was supposed to open on 18 November 2020 but will start after the museums reopen. Leonardo da Vinci and the Bust of Flora: ARTE Documentary on an Early 20th Century Berlin Art Scandalįrom the 2nd to presumably the 30th November 2020, all the museums of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin are closed to the public. Ulrike Wolff-Thomsen, art historian at the Zentralarchiv, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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