Italy’s artwork squad on Tuesday seized 21 artworks from a serious exhibition in Parma devoted to works by Salvador Dalì on suspicion they have been falsely attributed to the Spanish surrealist.
The present, entitled Dalì, Between Artwork and Fantasy, had solely been open for just a few days at Palazzo Tarasconi earlier than police confiscated the allegedly cast works, together with drawings, tapestries and engravings.
Doubts over their authenticity emerged in January when officers from the Rome unit of the Carabinieri artwork squad carried out a routine test of the exhibition when it was hosted on the Museo Storico della Fanteria.
“In the course of the inspection, the type we usually do at museums, one thing gave the impression to be amiss,” Diego Poglio, the senior officer main the investigation, advised the Guardian. “We seen that solely lithographs, posters and drawings by Dalì have been on show, together with just a few statues and different objects, however no work or something of significance. It was obscure why somebody would need to organise an exhibition of such low-value works.”
The squad raised its suspicions with the Gala-Salvador Dalí Basis, based mostly in Figueres, Catalonia, which revealed it had by no means been contacted concerning the exhibition by its organisers.
Poglio mentioned: “We discovered this totally unusual, as a result of if you wish to organise an exhibition of an artist’s works, particularly such an necessary one, you’ll be able to’t not undergo the inspiration which manages the gathering.”
The Dali Theatre and Museum in Figueres; consultants from the Gala-Salvador Dalí Basis, based mostly within the Catalonian city, ‘additionally suspected ambiguities’, mentioned Diego Poglio, of the Italian police. {Photograph}: Imagebroker/Alamy
The police despatched images of the artworks alleged to have been falsely attributed to Dalí, who died in 1989, to the inspiration, which agreed that “one thing didn’t add up” and dispatched a staff of consultants to Rome.
“In addition they suspected ambiguities and so Rome prosecutors gave the order for the 21 works to be seized,” mentioned Poglio. “Now we are going to proceed with the mandatory technical and scientific investigations to find out whether or not the works are genuine or not.”
Poglio harassed that the investigation was in its preliminary part and no one was but suspected of wrongdoing.
Italy’s artwork police recurrently tackles instances of reproduced works by the world’s well-known artists being offered or exhibited.
“We’re seeing a major presence of fakes out there, particularly in modern artwork,” mentioned Poglio. “It’s a international phenomenon.”
In February, police in Rome found a clandestine workshop the place fakes of work by Pablo Picasso and Rembrandt have been produced earlier than being offered on-line.
The invention got here just a few months after Italian police dismantled a Europe-wide forgery community suspected of manufacturing replicas of works by artists together with Banksy, Picasso, Andy Warhol and Gustav Klimt.
Typically the forgeries solely come to gentle when they’re displayed at outstanding museums.
“A lot of these behind the exhibitions act in good religion,” mentioned Poglio. “That being mentioned, we should all the time watch out – these answerable for the scientific curation should all the time conduct thorough checks on authenticity earlier than displaying the works.”
