Fake Art Bust: 'There Was Nothing Real... It Was Absurd'

Had the 450 works been sold at auction, the could have pulled in $265 million. Not bad for a bunch of fakes. Italian officials say they've carried out one of the biggest busts of counterfeit art in the last 15 years, seizing some 2,100 pieces painted by European art forgers. Fake works by more than 30 artists—Andy Warhol, Banksy, and Pablo Picasso among them—were then presented to potential buyers using "the help of complicit auction houses ... that issued forged certificates and stamps of authenticity," reports the AP. Thirty-eight people are under investigation, including six in Spain, France, and Belgium.

The New York Times reports many of the fakes were knock-off Banksy works and quotes Captain Lorenzo Galizia, head of Rome's art theft squad, as saying one Banksy exhibition in Cortona was determined to be entirely filled with fakes. "There was nothing real there," he said. "It was absurd." The investigation began in March 2023 when Italian authorities came upon 200 fakes in the home of a Pisa businessman; the discovery kick-started what came to be known as "Operation Caryatid" after a sketch, supposedly by Amadeo Modigliani, that was found among the lot. As for the fate of the seized artworks, they'll be destroyed or used for "didactic purposes," per Galizia.

(More forgery stories.)