A painting determined to be the work of “genius forger” Wolfgang Beltracchi in Japan’s Tokushima Modern Art Museum, it was returned and refunded for 67.2 million yen ($426,000) by an Osaka-based company on Wednesday, November 19, reported the Mainichi. The museum had announced that it would withdraw the canvas from an upcoming exhibition, following suspicions that it was a Beltracchi fake.
The painting in question, At the Cycle-Race Track 55, originally believed to have been made by French Cubist painter Jean Metzinger between 1911 and 1912, was part of the museum’s collection. It was purchased from an art dealer in Osaka in January 1999.
It wasn’t until an examination in 2024, however, when experts determined the work was a Beltracchi forgery, who previously served a three-year prison sentence for the crime and now works as an artist. At the time of conviction, the court found that 14 forgeries made by Beltracchi had been sold to collectors worldwide for a total of $45 million. Beltracchi has since claimed to have forged some 300 works by modern masters including Max Ernst, Max Pechstein, André Derain, and Fernand Léger.
The Tokushima Modern Art Museum subsequently conducted an investigation, with assistance from the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, from July through October this year to confirm the initial examination. During the investigation, they identified synthetic pigments that could have only been made after the mid-20th century.
The museum then began discussions with the painting’s seller, who agreed to a return and refund of At the Cycle-Race Track 55 on October 20. The painting’s origins was also unbeknown to the company at the time of the sale, making the purchase contract valid. The refund for the original purchase price was made to the prefectural government, which oversees the museum, on October 22; the painting was then returned to the company on November 18.
Now that the ownership has been transferred, there will be subsequent legal procedures to remove the piece from the prefectural government’s inventory ledger.
At the Cycle-Race Track 55 was on view at Tokushima Modern Art Museum in May and June, along with two informational panels about the painting’s dubious background.
This fake Metzinger canvas joins a growing list of high-profile art forgeries in Japan. Earlier this month, a painting thought to be Kiki de Montparnasse by Polish French painter Moïse Kisling, which had been prominently displayed in the gallery of Okayama Prefecture’s Yamada Bee Company Group, was also found to be a forgery made by Beltracchi.
Another suspected forgery, a portrait purported to have been painted by Marie Laurencin, was discovered in a Tokyo gallery collection. The legitimate work, titled Alfred Flechtheim, was painted by Laurencin around 1912–13 and purchased 36 years ago from a French gallery for roughly 30 million yen ($217,000). Questions were first raised about the so-called Alfred Flechtheim painting in Tokyo in 2011.
