A museum in southern France dedicated to painter Étienne Terrus has discovered that more than 80 works in its collection are fakes, reports FRANCE 24.
Local police are now investigating an art forgery ring specialising in Catalan painters.
Suspicion that the paintings, watercolors and sketches were fake was first sparked by art historian Éric Forcada, entrusted with overseeing the Terrus collection during a renovation of the small museum in the artist’s hometown of Elne.
A key detail was that some of the buildings in the paintings were built after Terrus’s death, local radio station “France Bleu” reported.
The museum assembled a committee of experts to inspect the works, which concluded that 82 of them had not been painted by Terrus.
The forged works are currently being housed at the Elne police station.