- Throughout history, there have been some masterful pieces of artwork that were so good they became priceless. However, that didn't stop some people from wanting them so badly that they actually bought them for a lot of money. Or at least they thought they did, because as it turns out, they got scammed. And in a big way. Here are the 10 greatest
art forgeries of all time. Number 10 is Albrecht Durer,
Treatment of the Paralytic. Albrect Durer was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker who once declared, "Be cursed, plunderers and imitators "of the work and talent of others." Well, this ended up being
ironic, because 125 years after Durer's death in 1653,
Italian Baroque painter Luca Giordano painted his own Durer, which sold for 600 crowns. That's about $120,000 today. Giordano had the nickname Luca fa Presto, meaning "Luke hurry" in Italian, because he was a fast
painter that could paint new works in great artists' style in as little as two days. He was never busted, but later admitted he painted this Durer and was sued, although the lawsuit was dismissed, because Giordano's painting was declared every bit as good as the original master. In fact, the painting now hangs in the Greek National Gallery in Athens and is attributed to
Giordano and not Durer. Well, yeah, I know it's his style, but I did it better, so gimme the monies! Number nine is Johannes
Vermeer, The Supper at Emmaus. Johannes Vermeer was a
17th century Dutch painter known for interior scenes. Like many great artists,
Vermeer died penniless in obscurity, only to
be rediscovered later and declared a master. In the aftermath of World War II, the Allied Art Commission
came to the studio of unknown Dutch artist Han Van Meegeren, who had sold Vermeer's The
Supper at Emmaus to a Nazi. He refused to identify its original owner and was arrested for treason. Facing the firing squad,
the Dutchman confessed to duping the art world that he despised, by forging the Vermeer
and countless other works. During his trial, he
painted a brand-new Vermeer to prove he was the forger. This one's extra weird, because he went from hack to Nazi
conspirator, to folk hero for swindling the Nazis. That's just confusing. Number eight is Paul Gaugin, The Faun. Like Vermeer, French Post-Impressionist Eugene Henry Paul Gaugin
was underappreciated until after his death. Gaugin was a pioneer of symbolism and famed for his depictions of primitive life in French Polynesia. His half man, half (bleats)
goat ceramic sculpture was rediscovered and authenticated, sold for millions, and displayed at the Art Institute of
Chicago for 10 years. The institute hailed it as one of their greatest acquisitions, as it was thought to be Gaugin's first ceramic and was shown alongside Van Gogh. However, as ya probably guessed, The Faun was later
revealed to be a forgery when the British Greenhalgh
family were implicated in the sale of a fake
ancient Egyptian antiquity. Scotland Yard traced the fake sculpture from Sotheby's Auction House to the mother of master forger Shaun Greenhalgh, who had the whole family involved. Okay, Mama, you gonna do the painting, Daddy, you gonna do the sculpting, and Imma sit back and just... just tell y'all what to do. Let's make some money! Number seven is ancient
Roman, Sleeping Eros. In 1496, a marble statue in
the Hellenistic tradition of a sleeping cupid from ancient Rome was sold to the grand-nephew
of Pope Sixtus IV. However, the cardinal was
suspicious that it was fake, so he sent an agent to Florence to investigate the rumors
of an unknown artist named Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti making preliminary sketches and aging the brand-new sculpture in acidic earth. The agent came to Michelangelo's studio demanding a refund but recognized the starving artist's talent
and let him keep the money. The cardinal actually became
Michelangelo's first patron, inviting him to Rome to work. Michelangelo went on to
become a Renaissance MVP, famed for his ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel, the sculpture of David, and of course the name of the pizza-loving
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Number six is Samuel
Palmer, Sussex Landscape. Samuel Palmer is one of Britain's most celebrated landscape artists, portraying pre-industrial
UK and a key figure in the 19th century Romanticism movement. However, the Times of London
dropped a bombshell article back in 1970, declaring many of Palmer's most revered and valuable
paintings were forgeries. A Cockney house painter named Tom Keating stepped forward to take the credit for the Palmer forgeries, as well as approximately 2,000 other paintings from art heavyweights like
Degas, Modigliani, and Rembrandt. Keating even left time bombs in his fakes, giving clues that they were forgeries to embarrass the art world that dismissed his talents as hacky. Time bomb, I actually
used pee in the paint. So go ahead and smell
that, you're welcome. But his forgeries are now
collectible in their own right. And his notoriety landed
him his own British TV show in the 1980s, where he taught viewers how to mimic the masters. Oh, crime doesn't pay, it's terrible! Sometimes it does. Don't commit crimes, kids. But sometimes it does. Number five is Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of a Sitting Woman. Amedeo Modigliani modernized
two of art's great themes, the portrait and the nude painting, with elongated mask-like
faces inspired by African art. Modigliani's work sells
at the same price point as Picasso, north of $100 million. But sales are problematic, because he is one of
the most forged artists. Hungarian painter Elmyr de Hory is considered to be the
greatest forger of our time and creator of over 1,000 fakes. He created mostly Modigliani as well as Degas, Picasso, and Matisse. He was so good, he also copied
experts' authenticity stamps and falsified documents for provenance. But his long con was discovered long after he amassed a tidy fortune. De Hory later signed the
back of his forgeries with the name Elmyr and
appeared in Orson Welles' 1973 film, F is for Fake,
a mind-bending documentary that was also a fake. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? Is this video a fake? Do I even exist? Aaaggh losing it! Number four is Claude Monet,
Lilies, Morning Effect. Claude Monet is one of the great masters whose works defined the Impressionist era. However, John Myatt is a 20th century British artist who could mimic not only Monet, but Renoir,
Picasso, and Matisse to near perfection. At first he signed his own name to paintings so that people
knew they were fakes, but in the 1980s, Myatt needed money and was convinced by con artist art dealer John Drew to copy almost
200 great works of art that were sold by the great
auction houses of London. And this would've been
great, except that Drew's bitter ex-wife tipped off the authorities to their scam, who called Myatt the biggest art fraud of the 20th century. Myatt ended up serving time for fraud but became a celebrity,
appearing on the UK TV show Mastering the Art, and still
sells his genuine fakes for plenty of money. Oh, that works? Oh, like I said, this
is the real Mona Lisa. Come on, somebody buy it, AdSense is down! Number three is Charles
Courtney Curran, Three Women. Charles Courtney Curran
was an early American Impressionist answer to Renoir, known for his masterful
portraits of women in nature. Mark Landis was not a well-known artist, but a failed art gallerist
whose greatest accomplishment was restoring others' art. However, Landis was also a schizophrenic who desperately wanted to be
recognized by the art world. So he concocted a scheme to forge great American
masters like Curran. He painted right over
digital reproductions using materials he bought at Home Depot and then donated the
works to American museums, universities, and institutions. Landis also used elaborate alter-egos like a priest driving a big red Cadillac. Hello, everybody, God be with you! I'm forging artwork. What? I didn't say that. And he did all that until 2007, when some museums examined his donations and declared them forgeries. But since Landis never accepted money or tax credits, he technically
didn't break the law, and nothing happened. But he did make it onto a top 10 list. I didn't do too bad, not bad. Number two is Max Ernst, The Forest. Max Ernst was a prolific
early 20th century German artist and provocateur, credited as one of the founders of
Dada and Surrealism. Unfortunately, gullible art critic and Ernst expert Werner
Spies validated The Forest, which sold for $7 million in 2006 and hung in the Max Ernst Museum. But the painting was a fake, created by German Wolfgang Beltracchi, whose forgery gang put $48.6 million worth of fake art into circulation. He claimed many of the paintings were from his wife's
grandmother's art collection, which would've been amazing, except nobody has that much art, man. But karma eventually
caught up with Beltracchi, when one of his forgeries
was carbon tested and revealed titanium dioxide white, which was unavailable when Ernst painted. See? There's no fooling the system. Except there is, and
eventually you'll get caught, but eventually there's
no fooling the system. And number one is Heinrich Campendonk, Landscape with Horses. In 2011, actor and comedian Steve Martin was also scammed by that
rascally Beltracchi gang, when he purchased Heinrich Campendonk's Landscape with Horses. Campendonk was a lesser-known
German-Dutch Modernist, whose work was deemed
degenerate by the Nazis. Yeah, that's ironic. Oh, you're degenerate,
you're a bad, bad man. The famed funnyman bought the painting that was supposedly painted
in 1915 for $850,000, only to discover later that
he bought a fake painting and resold it through
Christie's Auction House at a loss of $500,000. Just a quick side note, who
has $850,000 just lying around, to be like, you know what? I think Imma buy that,
I just, Imma go buy it. Although he was of course upset, Martin credited the
forgers as quite clever for creating long provenance, fake labels, and a series of dummied
and dated photographs of Beltracchi's wife posing next to the paintings from her grandfather. So that was the 10 greatest
art forgeries of all time. And if you enjoyed this, remember to give it a big thumbs up. Also, be sure to subscribe to my channel and turn on notifications by clicking the bell beside the subscribe button so that you never miss a thing, because I release new videos all the time. Thank you guys for watching,
and I'll see you next time. Or will I? Is this video even real? (laughs) Bye!
