The technologies available to abet the aspiring forger have also improved. In lockstep, the incentive to be a proficient forger has soared a single, expertly executed old master knockoff can finance a long, comfortable retirement. To the Art Newspaper, he protested: “I am a collector, not an expert.” The authenticity of four, in particular, including the Cranach, has been contested the art historian Bendor Grosvenor said they may turn out to be “the best old master fakes the world has ever seen.” Ruffini, who remains the subject of a French police investigation, has denied presenting these paintings as old masters at all. Ruffini has sold at least 25 works, their sale values totalling about £179m, and doubts now shadow every one of these paintings. The painting had been placed in the market by Giuliano Ruffini, a French collector, and its seizure hoisted the first flag of concern about a wave of impeccable fakes. But an anonymous tip to the police suggested she was, in fact, a modern fake – so they scooped her up and took her away. Purchased in 2013 by the Prince of Liechtenstein for about £6m, Venus was the inescapable star of the exhibition of works from his collection she glowed on the cover of the catalogue. Venus, by the German Renaissance master Lucas Cranach the Elder, to describe the work more fully: oil on oak, 38cm by 25cm, and dated to 1531. T he unravelling of a string of shocking old master forgeries began in the winter of 2015, when French police appeared at a gallery in Aix-en-Provence and seized a painting from display.
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