An Art Dealer in Madrid Was Arrested for Trying to Sell a Fake Leonardo da Vinci

The art world is flooded with fakes —and a dealer who was trying to sell one is now behind bars.

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Spain’s Policía Nacional arrested a man in Madrid for attempting to sell a knockoff Da Vinci work, The Guardian reported. According to the newspaper, French customs officers intercepted the suspect two years ago at the Modane border, where the portrait was found in his vehicle. At the time, it was confiscated due to an expired export license, which raised a red flag. The man, in his 40s, was suspected to have been on his way to offload the faux masterpiece for a whopping €1.3 million ($1.4 million) to a buyer based in Milan, Italy.

After the portrait—which depicted Italian aristocrat and military commander Gian Giacomo Trivulzio—was seized, French authorities had their suspicions and alerted the Spanish police. The painting was then analyzed by experts at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid and deemed as inauthentic.

“The experts’ report concluded that the work was a copy of the Milanese portraits painted around the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century,” the police said in a statement. “The painting was probably painted, with fraudulent intent, at the beginning of the 20th century. As such, its value is between €3,000 ($3,298) and €5,000 ($5,497), and the painting can categorically be ruled out as a being by Leonardo or any other Italian artist of the time.”

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The export certificate the man had for the painting, while real, was expired and therefore no longer valid, which prompted French customs agents to take possession of the work in 2022. Under Spanish law, an export license is required for any work of art over 100 years old. Without a valid certificate, taking such works across national borders is considered smuggling.

“An export license isn’t a guarantee of a work’s authenticity,” a spokesperson for the force told the Guardian . “In this case, the license was being used as a means of claiming the painting was original. Once it became apparent that the license had expired, the painting was confiscated and an investigation was opened. As soon as the investigation determined that this was an alleged case of smuggling, the arrest was made.”

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