An Art Dealer Was Arrested For Trying To Sell A $1.4 Million Dollar Fake Leonardo da Vinci Painting
The art world has long been a breeding ground for forgeries and fraud. Some fakes have been crafted so meticulously that they deceive even the best art experts.
But what happens when these supposed masterpieces are finally revealed as mere copies? Many stories of forged artworks that were later exposed have surfaced in the past few decades. Here is one of the most recent.
An art dealer was arrested by officials in France and Spain for trying to sell a fake Leonardo da Vinci painting.
According to Spanish police, the dealer was a man in his 40s, and he had claimed the imitation piece was worth almost $1.5 million.
After two years of investigative work, they were finally able to make the arrest. In 2022, the man attempted to bring the painting from Spain to Italy.
But at the Modane border, about 75 miles from Milan, French customs officials confiscated it from his vehicle. Ultimately, it was insufficient paperwork that led to the end of this man’s scheme.
For any work of art that is older than 100 years, Spanish law requires an export license to be issued. The man had a license that claimed the painting was worth $1.4 million.
It was a portrait of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, an Italian military commander. Apparently, Leonardo had painted it while working for Duke Ludovico Sforza in Milan between 1482 and 1499.
However, the license had been expired for several months, which meant the man had been smuggling the painting across borders.
dimbar76 – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“An export license isn’t a guarantee of a work’s authenticity,” said a spokesperson for the Spanish national police. “In this case, the license was being used as a means of claiming the painting was original.”
Once French customs officials realized the license had expired, they seized the painting and notified the Spanish police, who then traveled to the French border to take the artwork.
It was sent to the Museo Nacional del Prado, the national art museum in Madrid, Spain. There, experts carefully analyzed the painting to determine its authenticity.
Museum specialists concluded that the painting was a fraud and was not made by Leonardo. It was just a copy of Milanese portraits from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The imitation piece likely dates back to the early 20th century.
Experts valued it at between $3,200 and $5,400, which is much less than the $1.4 million the art dealer was asking for.
The good news is that he was caught before someone shelled out money to have a fake hanging on their wall.
Another case of art fraud was cracked in June when investigators realized that Astral Plain Scouts, a work supposedly created by artist Norval Morriseau, was a fake. The painting was donated to the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Canada by a private collector in 2000.
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