Discovered more than 30 fake paintings, sold by leading auction houses
ARTinvestment.RU   25 октября 2010

About 30 million pounds brought counterfeits Max Ernst, Raoul Dufy, Fernand Leger, Andre Derain, Henry Kampendonka and other

Among the works of the XX century, sold over recent years leading auction houses and dealers, and found more than 30 fakes. Reported by the Guardian with reference to the Observer. Were found counterfeits of Max Ernst (Max Ernst), Raoul Dufy (Raoul Dufy), Fernand Leger (Fernand Léger) and other artists - all worth at least £ 30 million. Dealers and collectors who have bought recently, works by artists appearing in the case, began to re-verify their purchase, even those in the authenticity of which there is no reason to doubt.

four fake paintings have gone through the auction house Christie's, in particular: "Horde" by Max Ernst from estimate: 3.5 million pounds sold in the Wurth Collection, "Boats at Collioure Andre Derain, pushed under the hammer for 2,000,000 pounds, the work of Henry Kampendonka (Heinrich Campendonk)« girl with a swan with a hammer price of 67,000 pounds and has a certain pattern over 344,000 pounds. Six paintings were sold through a leading German auction house Lempertz, one of them went under the hammer for 2.8 million pounds.

One expert dubbed the quality of these fakes the "gold standard". Fraudsters fake those works that are mentioned in the documentary sources, but their whereabouts was not known. For the most part it's not up to the already well-known work, and independent works, executed in the style of the respective artists.

assumed that the forgery had been made over the past 15 years in Germany. Police have arrested 59-year-old artist from Freiburg Beltrakki Wolfgang (Wolfgang Beltracchi), as well as his 52-year-old wife Helena and her 57-year-old sister, Suzanne. Suspects in his testimony referred to the existence of a collection of paintings inherited from his grandfather, Helena and Susanna Werner Jeghers (Werner Jägers). Of the case are two other men, whose names were not called.

Leading British expert on chemical analysis of paintings by Dr. Nicholas Istaf (Dr Nicholas Eastaugh) from the organization Art Access and Research conducted an extensive survey three canvases, and said that as part of their paints have pigments that do not match the expected time of writing, - respectively, the picture fake. Among them was "Red picture with the horses" Kampendonka, sold in 2006 to Lempertz for a record sum. Istaf said that disclosing this information with the permission of the deceived buyer - Maltese trading company Trasteco, which requires her to return the amount paid. A sketch on the back of the canvas, supposedly indicating the creative search of the author, was a forgery.

On many fake pictures were fake, and collection of gallery labels, helping to build their mythic provenance. The work of Ernst with Christie's worn the label of "Collections Flehthayma" that caused suspicion among art critic and biographer Flehthayma Entsha Ralph (Ralph Jentsch). On the other paintings was labeled "Collections Jeghers».

surprise one of the auctioneers that he was not the first vendor of these pictures, that is, before these paintings have already sold, says, that they must have been so convincing that not to arouse suspicion.

material was prepared by Maria Onuchina, AI

Sources: guardian.co . uk , artinvestment.ru