Posted on 04/30/2018 10:21:02 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's every art gallery's worst nightmare: given the ability of forgers down the centuries, what if some of those priceless works of art hanging on the walls are... not real?
A state-owned French art museum has discovered that more than half of its collection consists of worthless fakes and experts fear that other public galleries may also be stuffed with forgeries. An art historian raised the alarm after noticing that paintings attributed to Etienne Terrus showed buildings that were only constructed after the artist’s death in 1922.
Experts confirmed that 82 of the 140 works displayed at the Terrus museum in Elne, the artist’s birthplace in southern France, were fakes. Many of the forged oil paintings, watercolours and drawings were bought with £140,000 of municipal funds over the past few decades. Others were given to the museum by two local groups that raised money to buy them by appealing for donations. Some were bequeathed by a private collector.
Yves Barniol, the mayor of Elne, near the Spanish border, said: “It’s a catastrophe. I put myself in the place of all the people who came to visit the museum, who saw fake works of art, who paid an entrance fee. It’s intolerable and I hope we find those responsible.” The municipality has filed legal complaints for forgery and fraud. Police have seized the fakes and are trying to trace the forgers and dealers who sold them.
Among my prize possession are two Brueghels, Jan pere et fils, (the son and grandson of Pieter Brueghel) both fake, but beautifully painted by a Viennese-born artist, a dear friend long since dead, who worked "in the style of" as a hobby.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
In other news, museums have discovered that their modern art collections are all authentic but worthless.
I've seen amateurs try to make pseudo-rothkos and pseudo-pollocks and the results are horrendous.
IMHO, those guys are among the few modern artists who could actually paint and they're hard to mimic.
See, this is why I never spend 100s of 1000s of dollars on artwork. Well, this, plus I don’t have 100s of 1000s of dollars.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks SeekAndFind.
They went away happy not knowing the difference....that's all that matters.
Now you just burst their bubble.
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