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Sunday, January 13, 2013

The world of con art

con, or confidence game, is a swindle — when you take advantage of someone's trust. 

Video: Focus
Steve Martin was reportedly among the Beltracchis' most prominent victims. The actor and art collector spent €700,000 on Campendonk's "Landscape With Horses" at Paris gallery Cazeau-Béraudière in 2004, then resold it through Christie's in 2006, where a Swiss businesswoman bought the work for €500,000. German industrialist Reinhold Würth and Hannover’sSprengel Museum were also duped. French collector Daniel Filipacchi may have held the most expensive forgery, Ernst's "La Forêt 2," bought for some €4.9 million in 2006 after being shown at the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl and the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris. 

FORGERY: the act of reproducing something for a deceitful or fraudulent purpose

bluffcheatcrimedeceptiondouble-cross,dupefraud

gold brick, graft, mockeryswindle,take in
 1- art forgery scandals sentenced for:   counterfeiting paintings that sold for more than $22 m    tricking prominent museums2- the rampant fraud of masterly forgeries3- Master swindlers forged 47 works by world-class artists4- gullible expert was duped into confirming forged paintings


Helene Beltracchi, posing as her grandmother, in a pseudo-antique photo staged to lend credibility to the fictional provenances of  Beltracchi's forgeries. Hanging on the wall at left is a fake Fernand Léger; at far right is a phony Max Ernst

The Century Fraudster - Der Spiegel

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/   Thursday Oct 27, 2011

High life ends for couple who conned art world


Deutsche Welle  Thursday Oct 27, 2011

The Great Bluff Making Money with Art


 ARTINFO.com   Fri Oct 28, 2011

Masterminds of Massive Forgery Ring That Snookered top-notch collectors Receive Light Sentences After Charming Court and Public


The Greatest Fake-Art Scam in History?

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