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He is the famous art dealer accused of being the “evil genius” behind convincing frauds that deceived London’s National Gallery and Sotheby’s and deceived millions of pounds.
Now, 77-year-old Giuliano Ruffini is facing what he may face with the law for the last time, after he was accused of the art world’s “crime of the century” following suspicions over a series of “newly discovered” works by the Old Masters.
The sweet French-Italian will face a possible trial in Paris, accused of organized fraud, forgery and money laundering. He is accused of defrauding private art collectors, auction houses, and famous museums, including The Louvre and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
It took an eight-year investigation involving tens of millions of pounds to break the alleged forgery ring. The ring was alleged to be related to his friend, Italian painter Lino Frongia, known as the “Moriarty of the Fakeists”, who is suspected to be the real artist behind the fraudsters. Lino Frongia was not prosecuted for forgery.
The list of counterfeit artworks for which Mr. Ruffini is accused is long and lucrative.
These include a painting of St. Jerome allegedly by 16th-century Italian painter Parmigianino, which was auctioned for around £700,000 at Sotheby’s and subsequently exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
After experts reported that they had found modern pigment in the paint, it was declared a fake and Sotheby’s had to refund the price to the buyer.
The London auction house was already in disgrace when it sold Portrait of a Man believing it to be a genuine painting by Dutch artist Frans Hals.
The painting caused so much excitement when it was shown at a Paris auction house in 2008 that the Louvre launched a £4.4m fundraising campaign in hopes of adding it to its collection.
In the end, the Louvre didn’t get the painting. Instead, London-based art dealer Mark Weiss bought it from Ruffini for around £2.6m and then sold it for £8.9m in a private sale through Sotheby’s.
Sotheby’s once again had to reimburse the buyer for the full price of the painting, while Mr. Ruffini insisted that the artifacts be verified by experts.
Associated with German Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, the Veiled Venus was sold for £6.1m in 2013 to the Prince of Liechtenstein. Two years later it was also considered a fake.
Mr. Ruffini and Mr. Frongia are protesting their innocence. The dealer claims he was just lucky to have procured the lost works of Jan or Pieter Brueghel, Van Dyck, Correggio, Van Bassen and others during a glittering career.
Frongia was arrested in 2019 in connection with a fake El Greco painting called San Francesco, which was confiscated in 2016. Italy refused France’s extradition request for lack of evidence and was released on bail and the case was dropped.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Ruffini’s ability to consistently find lost masterpieces was cast into doubt. But in 2014, after French authorities received a long, anonymous letter linking Mr. Ruffini to the forgery, police launched an official investigation.
In 2019, a French judge issued an international arrest warrant for Mr Ruffini, who was living in Italy at the time. However, he managed to avoid extradition as he also battled tax charges in Italy.
Ruffini was cleared of tax payments earlier this year and surrendered in Italy in November.
“He is determined to prove his innocence in a court in France,” his lawyer Federico de Belvis said at the Italian police station, where he surrendered.
There were reports that Mr. Ruffini had fled from his home in Vetto, Reggio Emilia, but his lawyer said he was unaware that he was being sought by the French authorities.
“No one knocked on his door,” he said. He came because he read the arrest warrant in the newspapers.”
Mr. Ruffini is now under house arrest and is under electronic surveillance in France.
According to The Art Newspaper, Mr. Ruffini defends his ignorance and places the blame directly on experts, curators and dealers who verify the authenticity of artifacts from the world’s best museums.
