- Throughout history, there have been some
masterful pieces of artwork that were
so good they became priceless.
However, that didn't stop some people from
wanting them so badly that they
actually bought them for a lot of money.
Or at least they thought they did,
because as it turns out, they got scammed.
And in a big way.
Here are the 10 greatest art forgeries of all time.
Number 10 is Albrecht Durer, Treatment of the Paralytic.
Albrect Durer was a German Renaissance
painter and printmaker who once declared,
"Be cursed, plunderers and imitators
"of the work and talent of others."
Well, this ended up being ironic, because 125 years
after Durer's death in 1653, Italian Baroque painter
Luca Giordano painted his own Durer,
which sold for 600 crowns.
That's about $120,000 today.
Giordano had the nickname Luca fa Presto,
meaning "Luke hurry" in Italian,
because he was a fast painter that could paint
new works in great artists' style
in as little as two days.
He was never busted, but later admitted
he painted this Durer and was sued,
although the lawsuit was dismissed,
because Giordano's painting was declared
every bit as good as the original master.
In fact, the painting now hangs
in the Greek National Gallery in Athens
and is attributed to Giordano and not Durer.
Well, yeah, I know it's his style,
but I did it better, so gimme the monies!
Number nine is Johannes Vermeer, The Supper at Emmaus.
Johannes Vermeer was a 17th century Dutch painter
known for interior scenes.
Like many great artists, Vermeer died penniless
in obscurity, only to be rediscovered later
and declared a master.
In the aftermath of World War II,
the Allied Art Commission came to the studio
of unknown Dutch artist Han Van Meegeren,
who had sold Vermeer's The Supper at Emmaus to a Nazi.
He refused to identify its original owner
and was arrested for treason.
Facing the firing squad, the Dutchman confessed
to duping the art world that he despised,
by forging the Vermeer and countless other works.
During his trial, he painted a brand-new Vermeer
to prove he was the forger.
This one's extra weird, because he went
from hack to Nazi conspirator, to folk hero
for swindling the Nazis.
That's just confusing.
Number eight is Paul Gaugin, The Faun.
Like Vermeer, French Post-Impressionist
Eugene Henry Paul Gaugin was underappreciated
until after his death.
Gaugin was a pioneer of symbolism
and famed for his depictions
of primitive life in French Polynesia.
His half man, half (bleats) goat ceramic sculpture
was rediscovered and authenticated,
sold for millions, and displayed
at the Art Institute of Chicago for 10 years.
The institute hailed it as one of their
greatest acquisitions, as it was thought
to be Gaugin's first ceramic
and was shown alongside Van Gogh.
However, as ya probably guessed,
The Faun was later revealed to be a forgery
when the British Greenhalgh family were implicated
in the sale of a fake ancient Egyptian antiquity.
Scotland Yard traced the fake sculpture
from Sotheby's Auction House to the mother
of master forger Shaun Greenhalgh,
who had the whole family involved.
Okay, Mama, you gonna do the painting,
Daddy, you gonna do the sculpting,
and Imma sit back and just...
just tell y'all what to do.
Let's make some money!
Number seven is ancient Roman, Sleeping Eros.
In 1496, a marble statue in the Hellenistic tradition
of a sleeping cupid from ancient Rome
was sold to the grand-nephew of Pope Sixtus IV.
However, the cardinal was suspicious that it was fake,
so he sent an agent to Florence
to investigate the rumors of an unknown artist
named Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti
making preliminary sketches and aging
the brand-new sculpture in acidic earth.
The agent came to Michelangelo's studio
demanding a refund but recognized
the starving artist's talent and let him keep the money.
The cardinal actually became Michelangelo's first patron,
inviting him to Rome to work.
Michelangelo went on to become a Renaissance MVP,
famed for his ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
the sculpture of David, and of course
the name of the pizza-loving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
Number six is Samuel Palmer, Sussex Landscape.
Samuel Palmer is one of Britain's
most celebrated landscape artists,
portraying pre-industrial UK and a key figure
in the 19th century Romanticism movement.
However, the Times of London dropped a bombshell article
back in 1970, declaring many of Palmer's
most revered and valuable paintings were forgeries.
A Cockney house painter named Tom Keating
stepped forward to take the credit
for the Palmer forgeries, as well as
approximately 2,000 other paintings
from art heavyweights like Degas, Modigliani, and Rembrandt.
Keating even left time bombs in his fakes,
giving clues that they were forgeries
to embarrass the art world
that dismissed his talents as hacky.
Time bomb, I actually used pee in the paint.
So go ahead and smell that, you're welcome.
But his forgeries are now collectible in their own right.
And his notoriety landed him his own British TV show
in the 1980s, where he taught viewers
how to mimic the masters.
Oh, crime doesn't pay, it's terrible!
Sometimes it does.
Don't commit crimes, kids.
But sometimes it does.
Number five is Amedeo Modigliani,
Portrait of a Sitting Woman.
Amedeo Modigliani modernized two of art's great themes,
the portrait and the nude painting,
with elongated mask-like faces inspired by African art.
Modigliani's work sells at the same price point
as Picasso, north of $100 million.
But sales are problematic,
because he is one of the most forged artists.
Hungarian painter Elmyr de Hory
is considered to be the greatest forger of our time
and creator of over 1,000 fakes.
He created mostly Modigliani as well as
Degas, Picasso, and Matisse.
He was so good, he also copied experts' authenticity stamps
and falsified documents for provenance.
But his long con was discovered
long after he amassed a tidy fortune.
De Hory later signed the back of his forgeries
with the name Elmyr and appeared in Orson Welles'
1973 film, F is for Fake, a mind-bending documentary
that was also a fake.
Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Is this video a fake?
Do I even exist?
Aaaggh losing it!
Number four is Claude Monet, Lilies, Morning Effect.
Claude Monet is one of the great masters
whose works defined the Impressionist era.
However, John Myatt is a 20th century
British artist who could mimic
not only Monet, but Renoir, Picasso, and Matisse
to near perfection.
At first he signed his own name
to paintings so that people knew they were fakes,
but in the 1980s, Myatt needed money
and was convinced by con artist art dealer
John Drew to copy almost 200 great works of art
that were sold by the great auction houses of London.
And this would've been great, except that Drew's
bitter ex-wife tipped off the authorities
to their scam, who called Myatt
the biggest art fraud of the 20th century.
Myatt ended up serving time for fraud
but became a celebrity, appearing on the UK TV show
Mastering the Art, and still sells his genuine fakes
for plenty of money.
Oh, that works?
Oh, like I said, this is the real Mona Lisa.
Come on, somebody buy it, AdSense is down!
Number three is Charles Courtney Curran, Three Women.
Charles Courtney Curran was an early American
Impressionist answer to Renoir,
known for his masterful portraits of women in nature.
Mark Landis was not a well-known artist,
but a failed art gallerist whose greatest accomplishment
was restoring others' art.
However, Landis was also a schizophrenic
who desperately wanted to be recognized by the art world.
So he concocted a scheme
to forge great American masters like Curran.
He painted right over digital reproductions
using materials he bought at Home Depot
and then donated the works to American museums,
universities, and institutions.
Landis also used elaborate alter-egos
like a priest driving a big red Cadillac.
Hello, everybody, God be with you!
I'm forging artwork.
What? I didn't say that.
And he did all that until 2007,
when some museums examined his donations
and declared them forgeries.
But since Landis never accepted money
or tax credits, he technically didn't break the law,
and nothing happened.
But he did make it onto a top 10 list.
I didn't do too bad, not bad.
Number two is Max Ernst, The Forest.
Max Ernst was a prolific early 20th century
German artist and provocateur, credited as
one of the founders of Dada and Surrealism.
Unfortunately, gullible art critic
and Ernst expert Werner Spies validated The Forest,
which sold for $7 million in 2006
and hung in the Max Ernst Museum.
But the painting was a fake,
created by German Wolfgang Beltracchi,
whose forgery gang put $48.6 million
worth of fake art into circulation.
He claimed many of the paintings
were from his wife's grandmother's art collection,
which would've been amazing,
except nobody has that much art, man.
But karma eventually caught up with Beltracchi,
when one of his forgeries was carbon tested
and revealed titanium dioxide white,
which was unavailable when Ernst painted.
See? There's no fooling the system.
Except there is, and eventually you'll get caught,
but eventually there's no fooling the system.
And number one is Heinrich Campendonk,
Landscape with Horses.
In 2011, actor and comedian Steve Martin
was also scammed by that rascally Beltracchi gang,
when he purchased Heinrich Campendonk's
Landscape with Horses.
Campendonk was a lesser-known German-Dutch Modernist,
whose work was deemed degenerate by the Nazis.
Yeah, that's ironic.
Oh, you're degenerate, you're a bad, bad man.
The famed funnyman bought the painting
that was supposedly painted in 1915 for $850,000,
only to discover later that he bought a fake painting
and resold it through Christie's Auction House
at a loss of $500,000.
Just a quick side note, who has $850,000 just lying around,
to be like, you know what?
I think Imma buy that, I just, Imma go buy it.
Although he was of course upset,
Martin credited the forgers as quite clever
for creating long provenance, fake labels,
and a series of dummied and dated photographs
of Beltracchi's wife posing next to
the paintings from her grandfather.
So that was the 10 greatest art forgeries of all time.
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Or will I?
Is this video even real? (laughs)
Bye!