Stefan Lehmann

Stefan Lehmann (born 13 November 1951 in Caputh) is a German classical archaeologist.

Life Stefan Lehmann studied classical archaeology, ancient history, art history and cultural history in Berlin and at the University of Bonn.Stefan Lehmann studied classical archeology, ancient history and art and cultural history at the Humboldt University in Berlin and at the University of Bonn. In 1985 he completed his studies with a master's degree and received his doctorate in 1987 in Bonn under Nikolaus Himmelmann with a thesis on the subject of magnificent mythological reliefs from the imperial era. Subsequently, he was curator of the exhibition Ancient Portraits from Yugoslavia at the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Frankfurt am Main and employee at Academic Art Museum Bonn. He also worked at universities in Heidelberg, London (1991/1992: Honorary Research Fellow, Department of History, University College London) and Erlangen. Since 1994 he has been working in the German excavation in Olympia, where he first recorded the archaeological finds and findings on the statues of the Olympians and then dealt with the history of the sanctuary in the imperial era and late antiquity.

Outside the field, Lehmann became known as a critic of an exhibition of the Winckelmann Society in Stendal, to which he had belonged since 1974. A bronze bust of Alexander the Great from the property of the antique dealer Robin Symes was shown there. According to the exhibition organizer Max Kunze, the portrait should be an ancient original and renew knowledge of the portrait of the Macedonian ruler. Lehmann denied the authenticity and assigned the bronze portrait to the forgery workshop of the Spanish master. Due to the nature of the allegations made in this context, Lehmann came into conflict with parts of the Winckelmann Society, which expelled him on December 12, 2009, at the society's general meeting. This was followed by a legal dispute between Max Kunze and the Winckelmann Society on the plaintiff's side and Stefan Lehmann as the defendant. In 2012, Lehmann made a public, written affidavit in which he regretted the as-conceived defamatory attacks against Kunze and the Winckelmann Society. On March 8, 2012, the Naumburg Higher Regional Court confirmed in the last instance the conviction of Stefan Lehmann for the omission of the allegations against Max Kunze and the Winckelmann Society. Nevertheless, the bust is a modern forgery of antiquities and an object of the illegal antiques trade.

An exhibition organized by Lehmann in Halle in 2014 "The wrong Augustus". A questionable bronze portrait of the first Roman emperor including a workshop, the results of which were published in 2015 under the title "Authenticity and Originality of Ancient Bronze Images", deepened the problem of falsification of ancient bronze images and offered exemplary solutions. This publication was also immediately noted by the international specialist community and, as the reviews can show, lively scientifically discussed. So far, there are no scientifically justified suggestions for correcting the suspicious "Alexander Stendal" within the specialist department, which does not apply equally to other bronze works listed as suspicious in the catalog.

Works Mythologische Prachtreliefs. Dissertation. Universität Bonn 1988. Weiss, Bamberg 1996, (Studien zur Kunst der Antike und ihrem Nachleben. Band 1). with Andreas E. Furtwängler (ed.s): Alexander der Große – einst in Stendal: Original – Kopie – Fälschung? Halle (Saale) 2009, (Kataloge und Schriften des Archäologischen Museums der Martin-Luther-Universität. Band 2). with Ralph Einicke etc. (ed.s): Festschrift für Andreas E. Furtwängler. Zurück zum Gegenstand. 2 Bände. Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2009, (Schriften des Zentrums für Archäologie und Kulturgeschichte des Schwarzmeerraume. Band 16). with Katja Schneider (ed.s): Oskar Kokoschkas Antike. Eine europäische Vision der Moderne. Katalogbuch der Stiftung Moritzburg Halle. Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, München 2010.