James Edward Little was one of Europe's most notorious art forgers. He specialised in ethnographic material and, although he'd never set foot in the South Pacific, his forte was forging Māori artefacts.
Edward Little, as he preferred to be called, was even cheeky enough to sell these fakes to New Zealand. He caught out museum directors and art collectors around the world, from the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History to William Henry Skinner of New Plymouth.
Puke Ariki is now home to one of the world's largest collections of Little forgeries, affectionately known as the Little fakes.
There are no photos of James Edward Little, not even a description of the man exists. He is as elusive as the fakes he produced.
James Edward Little was born on 20 December 1876 at Torquay in Devon, England. As a young man he became an antiques dealer and an accomplished restorer of old furniture. He set up shop on the South Devon coast, where there was a steady stream of tourists in summer. To boost the family's income his wife let lodgings during the summer months. It was through this and a pure chance meeting that Edward Little's foray into forging was to begin.
In 1900 a well-known London art dealer named J.B Russell stayed at the Little lodgings. Being a dealer, he was interested in Little's display of stock and bought several pieces. Looking around the store room, Russell came upon some native curios. Although Little did not trade in such things, he promised to look out for them in the future and pass them on to Russell. He must have found quite a few, as a profitable little business ensued.
Little soon got the hang of things, raising his prices and devoting himself largely to trading Pacific pieces that he knew could get a good price. An advertisement he placed in the Exchange and Mart newspaper bought letters from several art collectors who were to become his main customers. W.O Oldman, H.G Beasley, James Edge-Partington and Captain A.W Fuller were great Pacific art collectors of the early 20th Century.
Little's mail order business as an ethnographic dealer had begun. He preferred to do all his transactions through mail - none of his clients ever saw him - although they may have been dealing with him for 10 years or more.
After a while he began to plump out his stock with forgeries and thefts. "He was pretty good with his hands" says Dr Robin Watt, the Wellington-based world authority on Little. "But then, I don't know whether it was greed or trying to support a family - next thing you know he's trying to steal things from museums." Little's plan was to steal items from museums and copy them for resale.
As a forger he was quite brilliant, but in the art of theft he failed miserably and bungled many attempts to steal artefacts from museums. In the book Comparatively Speaking, Terry Barrow describes Little's forgery work as “at their best, the most skilful Polynesian forgeries yet made. Little's best work can deceive experts. His inferior carvings, on the other hand, are among the least convincing of forgeries.”
Little lacked knowledge of Polynesian artefacts, in fact was ignorant of the culture, but was great at copying work. His skills as a furniture restorer enabled him to expertly reproduce old patina and copy surface decoration. The work he faked was either direct copies of authentic items, or products of his own imagination. He copied pūtōrino (Māori flutes), feeding funnels, bowls and hei tiki, and from his own imagination produced little god-like images and finger-bone necklaces.
Interviewed by an English paper some years later, art collector Captain Fuller noted “when Little found that good prices could be got for old Māori pieces, his procedure was to get a rare specimen and copy it exactly and in the correct native way, giving it every sign of age and even worm holes.” Little bought wood from old sailing ships, kauri or rimu, to add extra authenticity to his “original” works.
As he grew braver, Little discovered that his works did not have to be accurate renditions of Māori carving, in fact they only had to look primitive and authentic for people to buy them. Many of his buyers were ignorant of the traits of Māori carving. He even added little stories to go with many of his artefacts.
To a “death or taboo mask” he had copied from a preserved chief's head, Little attached a label “Mask brought home from New Zealand in 1848 by a relative of General Terry of Combe Park, Bath, with a piece of the original Māori hair”. Little claimed the mask was carved with the moko of the owner and was strung up to warn people off his property. It was all made up, fictitious twaddle, but people believed it and the mask passed through several hands before being bought by Captain Fuller, who had suspicions over its origins.
In most cases Fuller knew when an item was fake or not. He bought many of Little's pieces to demonstrate how similar to genuine objects fakes could be. Other collectors were totally drawn in by the ruse, spending thousands of pounds on items that were basically worthless.
Little's best work, often direct copies of authentic Māori artefacts, deceived art experts, and collectors around the world. Even today an artefact that has the hallmark signature of Little's work on it will occasionally come up for auction, says Dr Watt. "I might see a photograph of a piece up for auction in one of the bigger auction houses - when I've pointed out that it might be a Little, and therefore needs a bit more investigating, I've either been ignored or told to sod off!"
Dr Watt says the most distinctive thing about Little's carving style was his method of rendering grooves. "This method varied little from fake to fake and formed the basis of the Māori motifs which he used. His most distinctive grooving was the 'S' shaped simple double spiral. He often carved it in mirror-image and sometimes he simplified it further into a pākura-like motif. This 'S' form is found on nearly all of his fakes in both wood and bone." The spirals are almost like fingerprints, says Dr Watt, especially when compared to an authentic piece, identifying a piece as Little's workmanship.
How William Skinner came to be involved with Edward Little is a mystery. Skinner was a New Plymouth surveyor, historian, founding member of the Polynesian Society, chairman and principal benefactor of the Taranaki Museum. He donated his collection of Māori artefacts to the museum and is considered its founder.
It's thought he may have met Little on a trip to England in 1908, about the time Little seriously began to deal in ethnographic material. A regular correspondence developed. Little would send artefacts on approval to Skinner who, if he liked the object, would pay by postal order.
Skinner bought many articles from Little, some authentic, others fake - including a hei tiki claimed to be Māori skull bone, two tattoo funnels, a finger-bone necklace and a free standing Māori god-like image that has been described as “probably the best of Little's work to reach New Zealand”.
Around 1910 English collectors began to get suspicious of Little's work. While not naming Little personally they wrote about his fakes in collectors magazines and warned each other by word-of-mouth. Suspicions were cast over two Māori flutes and a pair of Marquesan stilt steps Skinner had purchased from Little. But when the New Plymouth man raised the subject with the dealer - the reply was prompt: “...I take it to be certain London dealers are doing me a serious injury...I can explain their reason that they never get anything from me now and have learnt that I send items out of the country."
In later letters he protests (surely tongue in cheek): "For my part I do not credit what the dealers say about copies of New Zealand specimens. I would never believe anyone could do it, and that it is a dealer to keep the trade in their own hands, and another thing is that the time the specimens would take to make anyone could earn twice the amount at menial work… I am certain the items I have sent you are genuine." But Skinner seems to have been taken in by the lies as he continued to purchase pieces from Little for some time - letters show Skinner purchasing work off the dealer as late as 1919.
Little covered his tracks by interspersing his sale of fakes with the occasional original artefact, often stolen from a museum. He also stole artefacts to copy from. As a thief Little was a bungler, despite the fact he had the clever idea of making replicas to replace the originals he had stolen.
In early 1913 six Māori greenstone artefacts disappeared from a showcase in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. The thief left green plaster cast replicas in place of the originals - hoping the difference wouldn't be spotted. At the same time four greenstone artefacts and a wooden waka huia (treasure box) disappeared.
A few days later Little sent Captain Fuller a parcel of three artefacts - one a waka huia remarkably similar to that stolen from the museum. But the museum curator was unable to positively identify the piece and Little was released from police custody due to lack of evidence.
In 1915 he stole a finely carved Māori wooden box from a Wiltshire museum, substituting the original with a roughly made stained wooden imitation. But the swap was noticed and Little was tracked down. He had written a false name in the visitors' book at the museum - but failed to notice he was the only visitor in three days - and as such was easily remembered by the curator. When police arrested Little they found an overcoat with a detachable lining, covered in the stain used to colour the fake box. Little was sent to prison for six months.
On his release jail in 1915 he enlisted in the Royal Engineers as a private soldier. He saw service overseas before being discharged in 1919 due to illness described as neurasthenia - or shell shock. While recuperating in Bath he set up an antique dealership and was soon up to his old tricks.
The depression years were bad for Little, and once again he was in the limelight for stealing - more bungled thefts. In 1932 Little attempted to steal a jade axe from a museum in Bath but was caught in the act by an attendant. In a rather sad attempt to deceive he had painted an ordinary piece of stone green and attempted to put this in place of the original. The forger pleaded that the antiques' business was poor and he was starving. Worry had brought on his neurasthenia and shell shock. He told the court he was earning a living doing odd carpentry work and playing the concertina in pubs during the evening.
In 1934 Little was caught several times, attempting to steal from a museum and an auction house. At the auction house he attempted to escape by throwing sand in the eyes of the man who held him. Police discovered he had his pockets full of sand - ready for just such an occasion. At his trial he made more excuses but was sentenced to six months imprisonment.
In 1939 Little's past caught up with him and he was sentenced to a year in jail. On his release he disappeared. He seems to have lived the rest of his life in squalor in Torquay, dying of toxaemia in July 1953.
Skinner, H.D (1974). Comparatively Speaking. Dunedin: University of Otago Press.
Chervenka, M. (2003). Antique Trader guide to fakes and reproductions. Iola, Wisconson: David and Charles.
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