Italian police have seized dozens of forged artworks attributed to famous artists such as Picasso and Rembrandt in what authorities have called a “clandestine painting laboratory”.
The investigation, led by the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, the country’s arts and culture police, and coordinated with the Rome prosecutor’s office, started when authorities began searching for fraudulent works that had been put for sale online, according to a press release issued by the police.
Police said they found a total of 71 paintings, adding that the suspect was selling “hundreds of works of dubious authenticity” on sites like eBay and Catawiki.
Paintings attributed to the likes of Pablo Picasso and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn were among the works of art.
There were also forged pieces purporting to be from Mario Puccini, Giacomo Balla and Afro Basaldella, as well as several other celebrated artists.
The workshop where the paintings were being produced was located by police to a house in one of Rome’s northern neighbourhoods.
Authorities arrived to find a room set up solely for the production of counterfeit paintings.
Among the materials seized by the police were hundreds of tubes of paint, brushes, easels, along with falsified gallery stamps and artist signatures.
The suspect, described by authorities as a “forger-restorer,” was even in possession of a typewriter and computer devices used to create paintings and falsify certificates of authenticity for the fraudulent pieces.
One tactic the suspect used was to collage over auction catalogues, replacing the painter’s original work with an image of the fake art he created, police said.
This would give the appearance that the fake painting had been the real one all along.
Police also found various works still in the process of being made on the forger’s table bearing the signatures of different artists – leading them to believe that the suspect had created them recently.
No arrests have yet been made and the suspect has not been named by authorities.
This is far from the first time that Italian authorities have unearthed forged artworks.
Established in 1969, the Carabinieri art police are specialised in combatting crimes relating to arts and culture.
In 2023, they recovered thousands of artifacts stolen from graves and archaeological digs.
