Two defendants in Germany for selling forged works by Picasso, Kahlo and other masters

Two men have been charged with attempting to sell forged works of art for millions of euros by great masters of painting, such as the Spanish geniuses Picasso and Miró, the Mexican Frida Kahlo, the Flemish Rubens or the Dutch Rembrandt, among others. The two defendants, aged 77 and 74, had in their possession about twenty forged works by those artists, as well as a fake sculpture by the Italian Amedeo Modigliani, according to a joint statement from the Amberg Prosecutor’s Office and the Bavarian Criminal Investigation Office (BKA), responsible for the investigation. “The main defendant was aided by eleven other people in his attempt to defraud,” the statement indicated, which pointed out that the 74-year-old man, his main collaborator, was preparing false documentation, such as expert evidence that demonstrated the authenticity of the forged works. You can also read: Public Ministry suspends in-person work this Friday due to the passage of storm Melissa Among the fake works for which the alleged scammers wanted to obtain amounts between 400,000 euros and 15 million euros are a falsified portrait of the French artist Dora Maar attributed to Picasso, another work by the Malaga genius dedicated to Françoise Gilot, as well as a canvas entitled ‘Nostalgia 1935’, by Kahlo, among others. In total, the authorities seized 20 works of art, as well as abundant documentation, mobile phones, hard drives and data located in the cloud, after searches were carried out on the 15th in a dozen German cities, including Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart and Dresden, in several cantons of Switzerland and in the Principality of Liechtenstein. 129 million euros for a fake Rembrandt
But there was a special forgery. The investigators specified that for a supposed painting by Rembrandt, ‘The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild’, almost two meters high and almost three meters long, whose original is dated 1662 and is currently in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the main suspect was asking for 120 million Swiss francs (about 129 million euros).

In order to obtain this sum, the main suspect showed said copy, which was in the possession of an 84-year-old Swiss woman, also under investigation in the case.

“The accused tried to convince potential buyers that that painting was the original” because, according to them, “the one exhibited in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was a recent copy”, as indicated by the statement. The team that investigated the case, dubbed ‘Dora Maar’, as specified in the text from the prosecution and the Bavarian LKA, began its investigations after it came to their attention that the main suspect wanted to sell two Picasso paintings – portraits of that muse of the Malaga artist – on the art market, presented as originals. In total, only in Germany a hundred police officers and three prosecutors participated in the investigation, which is still ongoing. The seized works will soon be subjected to an expert appraisal.