Receiving and trading in fake works of art, Vittorio Sgarbi among suspects

The Carabinieri ’s Artistic Heritage Protection Command unit has launched an investigation into an alleged criminal consp iracy aimed at receiving and marketing counterfeit works of art. Twenty-three people are under investigation, including well-known art historian and TV personality Vittorio Sgarbi. According to investigators, the suspects allegedly placed on the market several counterfeit works of art attributed to one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Gino De Dominicis (Ancona, 1947 - Rome, 1998), and other lesser-known artists, accompanied by false certificates of authenticity. Sgarbi appears to be under investigation as the president of the Fondazione Archivio Gino De Dominicis in Rome, around which the entire investigation revolves: for now, four precautionary measures have been issued (two house arrest measures have been imposed, one for the vice-president of the foundation and the other for the person believed to be materially responsible for the forgeries, and two temporary bans on professional activity, which have reached two gallery owners involved in the investigation). In addition, two hundred and fifty works believed to be forgeries were seized, and what investigators believe was the workshop where the forgeries were produced was identified.

Sgarbi commented on the affair with fiery words: “never had the carabinieri’s artistic heritage protection unit gone lower,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “The insipid prosecutor’s office,” he added, “is indifferent to vandalism and destruction and is pursuing and seizing authentic works by Gino de Dominicis on the basis of deceptive investigations, without any evidence, without the identification of forgers: an irresponsible and criminal investigation that destroys the reputation of an artist of whom no forgeries are known, except in the exaltation of those who claim to be the only expert. And even the magistrate gets involved by wearing the guise of an art critic, imagining a ’gang’ that was never there.” The carabinieri’s ignorance and the magistrate’s presumption are an imaginative and visionary threat to the freedom of criticism and the expertise of experts in order to further the interests of a single self-appointed art critic collector, from whom this dastardly investigation originated."

The noted art historian announced that he will provide for a parliamentary question, request access to the records of the investigation, which, according to him, “besmirches honest collectors and gallery owners without any evidence, and undermines critical activity with its free convictions,” and mandated his lawyer in order to proceed with a defamation complaint against the prosecutor who requested the investigation.

Pictured: Vittorio Sgarbi. Ph. Credit Giovanni Dall’Orto

Receiving and trading in fake works of art, Vittorio Sgarbi among suspects

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