The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World

by Anthony M. Amore

  But there was another side to Ely Sakhai, a separate portrait of a dealer who proved not so altruistic. Despite the injustice suffered by the Belgian family at the hands of the most evil anti-Semites in history, Sakhai wasn’t going to walk away from his Anto Carte empty-handed, happy simply to have righted a historic wrong. Instead, Sakhai wanted something in return, ranting about how he, too, was Jewish and suffered as well. Plus, he wanted his purchase price for the painting.8

  That Sakhai would be less than generous in his art dealings is of no surprise, as this restitution affair came on the heels of an elaborate and clever confidence game he created, taking forgery to a whole new level and scamming art collectors living far from his home in Old Westbury, New York.

  Sakhai entered the art market first by working at his brother’s antiques shop in Manhattan. Eventually, he would branch out on his own, opening a shop in which he sold furniture, antiques, and art. But the art Sakhai peddled was not in the league of the storied art galleries of New York, where prices could easily escalate into the tens of millions. Instead, he dabbled in relatively inexpensive items. He did, however, occasionally have an authentic Tiffany lamp for sale. Such lamps can be a rarity in antiques stores: many copies have flooded the market over the past few decades; some copies can be excellent, with the same level of exacting detail forgers put into paintings. Indeed, Tiffany lamps are considered true works of art and can fetch anywhere from a few thousand to over a million dollars. Sakhai made an intriguing observation about the authentic Tiffany lamp he had for sale in his shop—it was identical to a fake he had on a nearby shelf. He considered the two lamps and found them similar in every respect except for the presence of an authenticating label affixed to the base of the true Tiffany. Then he had a thought: if he could duplicate that label and adhere it to the base of much cheaper Tiffany copies, he could sell them as originals at a steep profit. And that he did, making hundreds of thousands of dollars off his crooked scheme.9

  It would have been bad enough had he stopped there. But Ely Sakhai had grander plans. Flush with the earnings he made selling lamps, Sakhai decided to morph from a moderately successful antiques shop owner to a successful art dealer, opening a gallery he named Exclusive Art Ltd. He also began dating and eventually married an affluent Japanese woman with whom he made trips to Japan and learned the practices of art collectors there. Soon he had another brainstorm.

  Sakhai had begun attending art auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s around 1990 looking to buy Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. Some took note of his unusual style of dress, but few noticed him for his purchases. That’s because he focused his efforts on lesser-known, midrange value paintings by renowned artists. Among those popular nineteenth- and twentieth-century figures whose works he bought were Marc Chagall, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and the man who had so influenced Anto Carte, Amadeo Modigliani.

  For an artist whose life was cut so tragically short—he died at only 36 years of age of tubercular meningitis—and therefore produced a somewhat limited body of work, Modigliani’s work has been the subject of a great deal of fraud. The famous and prolific forgers Elmyr de Hory and, later, John Myatt, made numerous counterfeit paintings attributed to him, and the problem of tracking Modiglianis is complicated by the fact that he was destitute and often resorted to trading his paintings for food. Furthermore, his mistress, Jeanne Hebuterne, committed suicide just days after his death. Thus, little information about his works remains. Perhaps most startling was the 2012 arrest of Christian Gregori Parisot, the man who headed the Archives Legales Amadeo Modigliani and was once considered one of the world’s most reliable authenticators of the artist’s works. Parisot was nabbed by Italian police after a raid of an exhibition resulted in authorities finding 22 fakes. They would go on to seize 59 fakes from Parisot and his suspected accomplice, art dealer Matteo Vignapiano. In all, it is thought that Parisot had put more than 100 bogus Modiglianis on the art market. Incredibly, Parisot was arrested a few years earlier for fakes he offered for sale as drawings made by Modigliani’s mistress, Hebuterne.10 For that crime, Parisot was convicted and sentenced to two years in jail as well as ordered to pay a fine.11

  Acquiring midpriced masterworks by the likes of Modigliani was only the start of Sakhai’s plan. Just as he cunningly converted cheap copies into authentic Tiffany lamps by affixing counterfeit authentication labels to them, he would substitute copies of master paintings for originals in a heretofore untested scam. Now that he had obtained originals from reputable auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, he needed to find a way to produce exact duplicates of them. This would be much more difficult than finding a lamp that was similar to a true Tiffany, and would garner much closer inspection than that made by a casual shopper happening into his old antiques store. Now he needed artists with great skill and an equal amount of discretion to work for him.

  In order to obtain talented labor at bargain prices, Sakhai turned to a group often exploited by con men: immigrants to the United States. Aware that Chinese artists receive a great amount of practice copying works as art students, he created a workforce of talented Chinese immigrants. As James Wynne, a highly regarded FBI special agent with vast expertise in the investigation of art crimes, said, “These individuals were professionally trained artists. They all received formal training in oil painting and part of that training involved copying masters.”12 Working for Sakhai was not the break these artists probably hoped for in their quest for a new life in the United States. Instead, he exploited their desperation for money by paying them paltry sums for their works. In a number of cases, Sakhai even sponsored Chinese artists to come to the United States with work visas, and then used their immigration status and economic situation as leverage over them.13 And to keep a close eye on their work and their activities, he set them up in a studio located directly above his art gallery. It was virtually a case of indentured servitude meets high art.

  Sakhai’s plan was criminal genius in its simplicity. Because he was indeed the true owner of the paintings he bought, he held the actual certificates of authenticity. And because he bought them from reputable institutions, his ownership was a true part of each painting’s provenance. Therefore, he could provide a credible authenticating document to potential buyers, giving them the confidence that they were buying the original painting when, in fact, Sakhai was selling them a copy.

  Assistant United States attorney Jane Levine said, “Mr. Sakhai . . . took a number of steps to make the forgeries look like they were actually created in the time period when that artist lived.”14 Committed to making sure his copies were beyond reproach, Sakhai hunted down era-appropriate canvases on which his artists could re-create his paintings, visiting antiques shops around the area to find cheap old paintings. His purchases did not go unnoticed by antiques dealers, leading them to grow suspicious of his intentions. One dealer told New York Magazine, “Everybody who was selling them to him would know what he was doing with them. He wouldn’t care what the painting was.”15 Clearly, he wasn’t buying them for any particular aesthetic appeal, nor was he making an investment. It was as if he were purchasing supplies for some illicit enterprise.

  Another advantage to Sakhai’s scheme was that many of his copies were made from the actual masterwork, not from a printed image, thus resulting in a more believable painting. According to Sharon Flescher, the executive director of the International Foundation for Art Research: “What was so clever in Sakhai’s scheme was that he in fact did own the authentic work. If the fakes were based simply on photographs, you’re always likely to trip yourself up.”16 The copies had to be meticulous, including each and every mark, scar, and abrasion on the painting—and not just on the front of the canvas. He ensured that even the backs of the copies matched the backs of the authentic paintings, an important way to fool someone who has seen the authentic painting or has some expert information about it. He even had his team of artists re-create the fram
es holding the paintings, paying careful attention to accuracy in terms of appearance and age. As a final step, and in order to keep his copies from appearing to be freshly painted, Sakhai would have a coating applied to some of the forgeries in order to give the paintings a passable patina.

  While he was no artist himself, Sakhai’s eye for a good scam gave him the requisite attention to detail to pull off the multimillion-dollar scheme. Once he was satisfied that his replica would pass muster, he set his sights on what he believed would be the perfect place for his dupes: his wife’s homeland. On trips to Japan, Sakhai noted at the time a surge in interest in Impressionist paintings, and it was no coincidence that Sakhai had bought a number of them. So, in the Land of the Rising Sun he had a market hungry for his art. Further, selling his wares in Japan presented him with a certain level of assurance that if his counterfeit paintings were found out, no fuss would be raised because of the cultural tendency to avoid public embarrassment at all costs. And finally, he would be doing his business quite far from New York, giving him the luxury of distance from his victims. As Special Agent Wynne put it, “I think the Japanese market was a convenient and safe place for him to place these paintings, in fact it was the other side of the world.”17

  While Sakhai’s scheme is thought to have involved hundreds of paintings, some of the most significant involve four Chagalls (La Nappe Mauve; Vase de Fleurs avec Coq et Lune; Les Maries au Bouquet de Fleurs; and Le Roi David Dans Le Paysage Vert), Renoir’s Jeune Femme S’Essuyant, Gauguin’s Vase de Fleurs (Lilas), Monet’s Le Mont Kolsas, and Palaste by Paul Klee. Of course, there was a Modigliani, La Blonde Aux Boucles D’Orielle. But most surprisingly, there was a Rembrandt—The Apostle James.

  While Rembrandt’s paintings have very often throughout history been the subject of thievery, in the modern world of art scams, forged and faked Rembrandts are quite rare. Indeed, such illicit activity is rare when it comes to any classical painting by an Old Master. As the stories of this book illustrate, artists such as Chagall, Dalí, Picasso, Miró, and their contemporaries are far more likely to be used in a widespread, ongoing scam than the likes of Rubens, Botticelli, or Valazquez. That’s not to say that people looking to get rich quick don’t ever attempt to present a never-before-seen Da Vinci of questionable provenance; rather, when con men set their sights on running an ongoing scam while attempting to maintain an air of legitimacy, they often turn to the Impressionists or Abstract Expressionists. The reason is practical rather than aesthetic: it’s easier to paint like an Impressionist or Abstract Expressionist than like Raphael or Vermeer, because it’s a very difficult thing to render, say, the human form or a landscape using different tones and values of paint to create that form. It is far easier to dab different colors of paint on a canvas than to apply it in a smooth, seamless sort of way. Thus, Sakhai’s introduction of Rembrandt’s The Apostle James into his mix of imposter paintings is surprising and somewhat unique, at least since the exposure of Han van Meegeren as a fraud after the Second World War. (For more on van Meegeren, see the Introduction.)

  The reasons are many why Sakhai’s use of a Rembrandt was risky. First, only about a dozen or so Rembrandts come up for sale every decade. As a result, offering up a Rembrandt for sale in Japan, the United States, or indeed anywhere in the world is newsworthy, and attention to a deal is anathema to a con man’s playbook. Second, Rembrandt’s paintings are extremely well known and studied, right down to every last brushstroke. The Rembrandt Research Project, a group that has been putting every work attributed to the great master under the microscope—and more—for more than 40 years works to ascertain whether a painting is, is not, or might be a Rembrandt. They can rather quickly and easily expose a fake, and that’s not the sort of nemesis the con man wants. That august group consists of the world’s best experts in the subject of Rembrandt, and that makes trying to traffic in counterfeits of his paintings especially risky if not downright fatuous. The Rembrandt Research Project—or any skilled paintings conservator or conservation scientist—could quickly determine if a Rembrandt was a fake or forgery by conducting a scientific analysis of the chemical composition and structure of the paint used in the work. Rembrandt’s paints have been analyzed in great detail, and the materials he used are well known, yet not easily replicated. While Sakhai was committed to giving his artists period-appropriate frames and canvases, he did not attempt to re-create Rembrandt’s paints. Furthermore, the craquelure, or cracking pattern, of the centuries-old paint is impossible to copy for any artist, and the appearance and paths of the fissures in the paint serves a purpose for authenticators in a way not dissimilar to how a human fingerprint helps crime investigators identify people.

  Contrast this with the number and frequency with which more contemporary artists have seen their works counterfeited. The works of Jackson Pollock—or those attributed to him—have consistently been the subject of attempts to scam buyers out of millions of dollars. Art such as that produced by Pollock is more difficult to quickly dismiss as a fake or forgery. For one, the materials he used are far more readily available on the market, usually manufactured rather than created in his workshop, as was the case with the Old Masters. Additionally, aged only over decades as opposed to centuries, there is less chance that his works would show a craquelure, as is the case with many classical works such as those by Rembrandt. And of course, it is much easier to replicate a seemingly random series of splatters than the hand skills of a master painter whose brush-stroke technique has mesmerized art historians and connoisseurs for hundreds of years. Said one successful recent forger, a self-taught amateur artist: “I love Monet. The Impressionists are quite easy to do.”18 One would be hard-pressed to find a forger who would say the same about Rembrandt.

  Take for instance the controversy surrounding the so-called Matter paintings. In 2005, filmmaker Alex Matter, whose parents knew Jackson Pollock, unveiled 32 works he claimed were painted by the famous Abstract Expressionist. Though Matter could show that his paintings were authenticated by a Pollock art historian, contrarian views on the authenticity were raised just as suddenly as the works appeared. And in another case, a truck driver by the name of Teri Horton bought a painting for five dollars at a flea market that she believes to be a lost Pollock work. To this day, the debate still rages unresolved regarding whether any of these paintings are Pollocks or cheap knockoffs.

  None of this is to say that Rembrandts are easy to identify. The aforementioned Rembrandt Research Project has labeled a number of works attributed to him as only possibly done by the master himself, with the group unable to come to a consensus. Since many famous Old Masters taught talented students, paintings exist that were executed by understudies and followers that are quite similar in terms of age, technique, materials, and subject matter. Confusing the matter further is the fact that it was not altogether unusual for the master to put just the finishing touches on a picture painted in almost its entirety by an apprentice.

  Still, and without question, attempting to pass off a counterfeit Rembrandt was an incredibly brazen move on Sakhai’s part. But brazen he was, and he did have a certain advantage in his scheme: the legitimate ownership of the authentic painting that he had his artists copy. The authenticity of his Rembrandt, The Apostle James, was not questioned. Nor was the fact that it was purchased by Ely Sakhai from a reputable source. So when he would offer what he purported to be the painting for sale, it didn’t raise questions about authenticity, if only because those interested in the painting perhaps failed to imagine the nefarious scheme of the seller. Thanks in large measure to his travels in the Far East with his wife, Sakhai made it his mission to establish a steady clientele in Tokyo and Taiwan too. And in June 1997, he sold his Rembrandt to the Japanese businessman and art collector Yoichi Takeuchi.

  Takeuchi had been a customer of Sakhai’s since 1992, when he started buying art from him in a complicated deal involving a third party who would later allegedly renege on their part in the purchase
of the artwork, leaving Takeuchi with paintings he didn’t want. When Takeuchi accused Sakhai of a “fraudulent plot” against him, Sakhai replied that he, too, was the victim and had filed suit against the third party. Of course, he had not. The summons he showed Takeuchi was bogus.19 With a loan balance still due to Takeuchi, Sakhai made him an offer: he’d sell him The Apostle James for forgiveness of the loan plus $350,000. Takeuchi believed that the painting was authentic, and he would go on to say that he was influenced in his decision to purchase the painting at a dinner in New York with a person who claimed to be a branch manager for Citibank. The Citibank representative, said Takeuchi, certified that the Rembrandt was exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum. So the businessman accepted Sakhai’s offer and made the deal for the Rembrandt.20

  It stands as a testament to an art lover’s desire to believe that he has made a great find and executed a great deal that Takeuchi purchased The Apostle James from Sakhai. In 1992, near the beginning of their business relationship, Takeuchi was furious with Sakhai over another major purchase. Writing in November of that year, he said, “You have delivered about 500 paintings to us with the condition you provide a provenance and certificate for each painting. . . . We feel we cannot do business in trust with you anymore. . . . This case will become a court case in Japan soon. But we feel very sorry that our trust and friendship will end this way. We also point out that you have to provide provenances and certificates regardless of the situation. If you break your promises, you will be prosecuted as an international criminal.”21 Given this inauspicious start to the relationship, it is surprising that Takeuchi would continue to conduct business with a person he so described. Nevertheless, he would go on to make the Rembrandt purchase.