Last year, Wolfgang Beltracchi had been making headlines as one of the most, shall I say, “successful” counterfeiters in recent art history, when criminal proceedings were brought against him. Beltracchi had specialized in forging German expressionist painters. He managed to invent a completely fictitious early 20th century art collection, the Werner Jägers collection. His works of art thus gained a first class pedigree, and were sold through renowned auction houses such as Christie’s in London or Lempertz in Cologne.  In the criminal proceedings against him and his helpers, it became known that the turn-over Beltracchi’s art scam had generated was in the tens of millions of Euros. The buyer of a fake painting brought an action against the Lempertz auction house for damages. In a judgment issued today, the District Court (Landgericht) Cologne held Lempertz liable and ordered it to hold the buyer harmless for the purchase price in the order of EUR 2.9 million. Continue reading →