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Pieter Brueghel the Elder – The Dutch Proverbs Photo sourced from

10 of the Most Famous Fake Paintings in Art History

Art forgery is the creating and selling of works of art which are falsely credited to other, usually more famous artists. Art forgery can be extremely lucrative, but modern dating and analysis techniques have made the identification of forged artwork much simpler. This type of fraud is meant to mislead by creating a false provenance, or origin, of the object in order to enhance its value or prestige at the expense of the buyer.

As a legal offense, it is not just the act of imitating a famous artists key characteristics in a piece of art, but the deliberate financial intent by the forger.When caught, some of these forgers attempt to pass off the fakes as jokes or hoaxes on the art experts and dealers they were selling to, or on the art world as a whole. 

Let’s take a look at some of the most famous fake paintings in art history;

1.Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus attributed to Vermeer

This is a painting which came to the center of attention and the centre of one of the most amazing art scandals of the 20th century. During WWII, the painting was brought to the attention of noted Vermeer expert Abraham Bredius , who upon seeing the work thought as a master piece believed it to be none other than the genuine article and one of Vermeer鈥檚 most masterful works. Little doubt was expressed by the public regarding this opinion because of the respect Bredius had in the art world and the relative obscurity of Vermeer at the time. The painting might have gone unnoticed as a forgery had the war not been going on.

Han Van Meegeren was charged with collaborating with the enemy for selling what was believed to be an original Vermeer to Nazi Field Marshall Hermann Goering. To escape the death sentence this accusation held, Van Meegeren claimed that this painting was a forgery. To prove it, he painted another copy of Vermeer鈥檚 work under police guard. It turns out that he had not only forged these works but at least16 others through an ingenious process of painting and aging. 

2.The Netherlandish Proverbs attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Brueghel the Elder – The Dutch Proverbs Photo sourced from

鈥淣etherlandish Proverbs鈥� also called Dutch Proverbs is a painting attributed to Pieter Bruegel, the Elder. It depicts a scene in which humans and, to a lesser extent, animals and objects, offer illustrated examples of Dutch proverbs and idioms.This painting is consistent with the common themes in Bruegel鈥檚 paintings on the absurdity, wickedness, and foolishness of humans. This painting is a catalog of human folly, and the people depicted show the characteristic blank features that Bruegel used to portray fools.

His son Pieter Bruegel the younger made numerous copies of his father鈥檚 work, including this popular painting, as well as a landscape that now hangs in the Delporte Collection in Brussels.Most interestingly, not all copies the son made of this father鈥檚 work include the same proverbs, and often are not exact copies. While imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, in this case it served to confuse and perhaps mislead art buyers. While Brueghel spent many years copying his father鈥檚 works, he also enjoyed a successful career in his own right, painting similar scenes though many say, without the same subtlety and humanism as that of his father and in a much more idealized manner.

3.Portrait of Alexander Mornauer attributed to Hans Holbein

Portrait of Alexander Mornauer Photo sourced from

The Portrait of Alexander Mornauer was for centuries described as a work by Hans Holbein, court painter to Henry VIII. When the National Gallery acquired the painting in 1990 and subjected it to scientific analysis, it was discovered that a layer of cobalt blue paint 鈥� typical of surviving Holbein portraits 鈥� had been applied over the original brown of the background. Further examination showed that the style of the sitter’s headgear had been carefully modified from a cylindrical fez-like hat to a neat cap, again more like the hat that might be worn by the sitter in a genuine Holbein.

It appears in this case that the original work had been altered for an 18th-century buyer at a time when the work of Holbein was in great demand. Scientists also discovered that neither the brilliant blue background nor the shape of Mornauer’s hat reflected the artist’s original intent. After conservators had removed an extremely discoloured layer of varnish, scientific examination showed that both the texture and colour of the blue background paint were unusual for the 15th century.

4.An Allegory attributed to Sandro Botticelli

Often regarded and attributed to Sandro Botticelli “An Allegory” is a painting was done by one of the followers of Botticelli rather than Botticelli himself. In 1874, the National Gallery purchased two works attributed to iconic Italian painter Sandro Botticelli, well before the advent of modern authentication technologies. One of these paintings, Venus and Mars turned out to be authentic and is one of the museum鈥檚 most prized paintings.

Yet the other, though at the time to be a companion painting to Venus and Mars, was discovered to be done by a follower in the style of the master, rather than by Botticelli himself.While still skillfully executed, the work doesn鈥檛 have the value or the prestige afforded to Botticelli鈥檚 work. Ironically, the museum paid more for the fake than for the real thing. It is often considered one of the most expensive fake paintings of all time and one of the worst dubbings .

5.Watercolors attributed to Marc Chagall

The water colors are paintings listed among the most fakes in the 1960s,because a young art dealer named David Stein sold three watercolors, purportedly by Russian artist Marc Chagall to an art dealer in New York. The works weren鈥檛 authentic, however, as Stein had painted them that day and created forged letters of authentication as well. After selling the paintings (watercolors), Stein may have got off scot-free if it had not been for a chance occurrence.

Marc Chagall by chance suddenly happened to meet the dealer who had bought those watercolors on that very same day,and immediately revealed that they were fakes. Stein was caught and went on to serve several years in prison for the forgery but the incident could turn his situation to the best as it boosted his reputation so much that he was able to strike up a career as an original artist upon his release. 

6.Henri Leroy attributed to Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Forgeries on Corot鈥檚 works are so common and is sometimes rated as the most widely forged artist of all time, having producing only 3,000 works in his lifetime while over 100,000 works in the United States alone are attributed to him. It might have something to do with his willingness to let others borrow original works to copy for study or his style that is relatively easy to emulate.However, this particular forgery is a masterful one done by Eric Hebborn, and after being caught published a book on his life as a forger.

In it, he showcases his copy of Corot鈥檚 work alongside the original, challenging art experts to tell the difference. And that was the problem. Hebborn was so good at forging works that the art market is still haunted by doubts that seemingly authentic works could, in fact, be his handiwork. To this day, he is regarded for this work and the thousands of others he completed in his lifetime, as one of the best forgers of all time. 

7.Unnamed painting supposedly by Basquiat 

Federal agents charged a dealer in Palm Beach, Florida, with wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering for selling allegedly fake works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and others for millions of dollars.The most expensive work in the case was an unnamed painting supposedly by Basquiat that Bouaziz is believed to have bought on the website LiveAuctioneers for $495. He then sold it to an undercover FBI agent for $12 million, according to the complaint.

When the agent asked Bouaziz, a French citizen who was born in Algeria, about the painting鈥檚 authenticity, the dealer reportedly said, 鈥淧rovenance is father of Basquiat so there is not really a conversation about it.鈥� The FBI claims that it contacted a former member of the Basquiat estate鈥檚 now-defunct authentication committee, who was not named in the suit, and that this expert said the work was a fake.

8.La Femme Au Chapeau Bleu by Pablo Picasso

Femme au Chapeau or Lucie au chapeau is an oil painting created circa 1906 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger (1883鈥�1956). The work is executed in a highly personal Divisionist style with a marked Proto-Cubist component during the height of Fauvism. Femme au Chapeau exhibits a presentiment of Metzinger’s subsequent interest in the faceting of form associated with Cubism. The painting now forms part of the collection of the Korban Art Foundation. 

Tatiana Khan, who owned the Chateau Allegre gallery in West Hollywood, California admitted to commissioning a forged version of “La Femme Au Chapeau Bleu” by Pablo Picasso, which later sold for $2 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. Khan paid an art restorer $1,000 to recreate the painting, which she then sold for millions, according to CNN. She was sentenced to five years probation in 2010.

9.A portrait of William Shakespeare turned out to be a fake

In 2005, the so-called “Flower portrait,” named for the family who owned it, which depicted playwright William Shakespeare, turned out to be a fake.The painting was supposedly created in 1609, but the National Portrait Gallery told the BBC that when they x-rayed it, they found that the paint used was created sometime in the 19th century.

This fake portrait is among the most famous one in the art world and seems to have fought the world off guard when it came to the open. “Now we know the truth we can put the image in its proper context in the history of Shakespearean portraiture, alongside the other fascinating pieces in our collection in Stratford, ” the national gallery said. 

10.Mona Lisa 

Mona Lisa by Leornardo Da Vinci Photo sourced from

The famous painting which is the most famous and most expensive master piece of all time has had several fakes over the years. It is among the most copied paintings with its copies selling for as high as $3million. A famous fake copy of the Mona Lisa, so similar to Leonardo da Vinci鈥檚 masterpiece that some experts questioned whether the real copy was hanging in the Louvre, was purchased recently for $3.4 million, selling at an auction for more than 10 times its appraised value.

The painting is named after Raymond Hekking, an antique seller in France who bought the painting from an antique store in 1953 for 拢3鈥攁bout 拢86, or $110, in 2020鈥攁ccording to Christie鈥檚. Hekking believed his painting was the original, and that a fake painting was returned to the Louvre after the original was stolen in 1914. While some art historians seriously considered Hekking鈥檚 arguments at the time, experts now believe it was painted by an unknown Italian artist in the 1600s, about a century after da Vinci painted the real Mona Lisa.

Whether it鈥檚 for monetary gain or just for the thrill of it all, the ability to mimic famous artists鈥� works to the point where no one can really tell the difference, is a talent in itself.