Silverton Park, a mansion near Silverton

Silverton, Devon

Silverton is a large village, about north of Exeter, in the English county of Devon. It is one of the oldest villages in Devon and dates from the first years of the Saxon occupation . In the year 2001, its population was 1,905. It has three pubs: The Lamb, The Three Tuns and the Silverton Inn.The...

, Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, was erected for George Wyndham, fourth Earl of Egremont

Earl of Egremont

Earls of Egremont was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1749, along with the subsidiary title of Baron Cockermouth, for Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset, with remainder to his nephews Sir Charles Wyndham, 4th Baronet, of Orchard Wyndham, and Percy Wyndham-O’Brien...

, in 1839–45. Having inherited the Egremont title but not the great Egremont seat, Petworth House

Petworth House

Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century mansion, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s by Anthony Salvin...

, he determined to rival Petworth with a house of his own. His architect, James Thomas Knowles

James Thomas Knowles

James Thomas Knowles was a British architect with an extensive practice in building upper-class houses in the Italianate manner more familiar in the work of Sir Charles Barry. His designs submitted in the competition for the new Houses of Parliament lost to Barry's design...

, provided him 187 rooms, occupying an acre of ground. But when the earl died in 1845, the interior of the house was not fully complete; after a sale of its contents in 1892 it was totally demolished. Today, the unfinished stable block (50.8139°N 3.4630°W) has been converted for reuse as self-catering holiday accommodation by the Landmark Trust

Landmark Trust

The Landmark Trust is a British building conservation charity, founded in 1965 by Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or architectural merit and then gives them a new life by making them available for holiday rental...

.

The art forger

Art forgery

Art forgery is the creation of works of art which are falsely attributed to other, usually more famous, artists. Art forgery can be extremely lucrative, but modern dating and analysis techniques have made the identification of forged artwork much simpler....

 Shaun Greenhalgh

Shaun Greenhalgh

Shaun Greenhalgh is a British art forger. Over a seventeen-year period, between 1989 and 2006, he produced a phenomenal range of forgeries...

 and his father bought a copy of the 1892 sale catalogue and used the unillustrated catalogue descriptions to recreate items, for which the catalogue would provide a spurious provenance

Provenance

Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...

. They went on to create the "Amarna Princess

Amarna Princess

The Amarna Princess, sometimes referred to as the "Bolton Amarna Princess", is a statue forged by British art forger Shaun Greenhalgh and sold by his father to Bolton Museum for £440,000 in 2003. Based on the Amarna art-style of ancient Egypt, the purchase of the Amarna Princess was feted as a...

", based on the Amarna art style

Amarna art

The Ancient Egyptian art style known as Amarna Art was a style of art that was adopted in the Amarna Period , and is noticeably different from more conventional Egyptian art styles.It is characterized by a sense of movement and activity in images, with figures having raised heads, many figures...

 of ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

; they sold the sculpture to Bolton Museum

Bolton Museum

Bolton Museum is a public museum and art gallery in the town of Bolton, Greater Manchester, northern England, owned by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council....

for £440,000 in 2003 but were subsequently caught.