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posted by mrpg on Monday April 30 2018, @12:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the punters-were-happy dept.

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."

[...] Art experts estimate that at least 20 per cent of paintings owned by major museums across the world may not be the work of the purported artists.


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 30 2018, @10:55AM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday April 30 2018, @10:55AM (#673665)

    The thing you need to realize is that these aren't copies of an original by the artist, these are unique original compositions in the style of the purported artist done with the same quality of execution that the original artist would have used.

    I specifically mentioned that possibility, in this case a Cubist painting with the word "Picasso" signed somewhere.

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 30 2018, @05:14PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 30 2018, @05:14PM (#673816) Journal

    You also said "make a reasonably good copy", and that's *not* what this is about.

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