A fake Velazquez was offered for sale for nearly $1 million
The 2006 has been especially prolific in art-related detective cases. After the notorious robberies of Edvard Munch’s “The scream” and of many artworks from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and the very recent theft of Goya’s “Niños en el carretón” while being delivered to the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the last episode has occurred in Spain, where a group of forgers were about to sell a fake Velázquez for €900,000 (more than $1 million), besides other less valuable pieces.
The painting, depicting King Phillip IV, who appears in many portraits by Velázquez, was going to be sold to an unidentified buyer. The fact of that somebody is willing to pay such an amount of money for an undocumented Velázquez is quite surprising, since Velázquez complete catalogue is well documented and a new addition to it -as the “Saint Rufina” in 1997 and the “The tears of Saint Peter” the following year- constitutes a highly important artistic event.
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