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, watercolors and drawings were bought with £140,000 of municipal funds over the past few years. Others were given to the museum by two local groups that raised money to buy them by appealing for donations, the Washington Post reported.
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. The fakes were spotted by experts asked by the museum to help prepare an exhibition.
Some suspect that other museums may also contain large numbers of forged works attributed to southern French artists. A source close to the investigation said: “We know there have been a lot of forgeries circulating and we believe a well-organized network was behind this."
Terrus (1857-1922) spent most of his life in Elne, and is best known for his landscapes of the Roussillon area, also known as French Catalonia, ceded to France by Spain in the 17th century.
French police suspect the existence of fake works attributed to other Catalonian artists such as Pierre Brune, Balbino Giner and Augustin Hanicote.
Art experts estimate that at least 20 percent of paintings owned by major museums across the world may not be the work of the purported artists.
