Name: Étienne Terrus.
Age: 64 (when he died in 1922).
Appearance: bearded, heavy-browed, severe.
Occupation: Painter, one of the forerunners of the fauvist movement.
Any good? He lapsed into obscurity for a time, but was rediscovered in the late 20th century. In 1994, a museum dedicated to his work – Musée Terrus – opened in his home town, Elne, near the French border with Spain.
You mean there is a whole building full of paintings by Terrus? Well, I wouldn’t go that far.
You mean the museum that bears his name is mostly filled with paintings by Terrus? Not quite, no.
What do you mean, then? After extensive renovations, an art historian hired to reorganise the collection discovered that a number of the paintings and drawings attributed to Terrus were fakes.
How many? A panel of experts determined that 82 of the 140 works owned by the museum were forgeries.
But that is – hang on, where is my calculator? It is almost 60% of the collection.
Where did all these fakes come from? That is hard to tell at this point. The local council spent about £140,000 buying work on behalf of the state-owned museum over the years, but some paintings were bequeathed by collectors, while others were purchased through fundraising efforts.
There must be a master forger at work! Not according to Eric Forcada, the art historian who discovered the fakes. “At a stylistic level, it’s crude,” he said. “The cotton supports do not match the canvas used by Terrus. And there are some anachronisms.”
Anachronisms? Some of the paintings feature buildings that had not yet been constructed at the time of Terrus’s death.
How embarrassing for the people of Elne. Yves Barniol, the town’s mayor, is mortified. “Knowing that people have visited the museum and seen a collection, most of which is fake, that’s bad,” he said. “It’s a catastrophe for the municipality.”
What does he plan to do about it? A legal complaint has been filed, the fakes have been seized by police and an investigation is under way.
In the meantime, they should change the name of the museum to something like Terrus and Friends. The police believe other museums may have been similarly duped; they suspect an organised ring.
Do say: “Worth a visit – polite staff, lovely gift shop, almost 40% of paintings genuine.”
Don’t say: “My kid could paint that – it will be ready on Wednesday.”
