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Who Made the Fake Giacomettis?

May 19, 2011 by Marion Maneker

The last of the Giacometti forgers is about to face judgment. But Der Spiegel asks where the 200 fake Giacomettis were fabricated:

So who created, one by one, around 1,200 of these forgeries? Investigators discovered that Schulte had driven regularly to the Netherlands, where he picked up the sculptures and brought them to his storeroom in Mainz. Schulte also admits to sending bank transfers to the Netherlands amounting to €700,000. The recipient was a business partner known as “Brummie,” who moved to Thailand five years ago. Schulte continued to send money there, too.

“We still don’t know where the factory is, even after all these years,” laments Véronique Wiesinger, director of the Giacometti Foundation, in Paris.

Wiesinger engaged Hamburg-based lawyer Kristoff Ritlewski to represent the foundation as a joint plaintiff in the trial in Stuttgart. “It was only due to our additional suit that we were able to obtain a ruling concerning copyright infringement as well,” Ritlewski says.

In any case, Wiesinger reports, there are plenty of forged Giacometti sculptures still at large. It bothers her greatly to know that “at this point, these lousy imitations are being resold on eBay.”

Sculptures in a Suitcase (Der Spiegel)

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Filed Under: Fraud, Theft & Restitution Tagged With: Giacometti

About Marion Maneker

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