Original subtitles

Isn't the yellow wonderful? I could lick it up.

Wonderful.

Nice.

It was extremely hard to take.

HENRIK HANSTEIN AUCTIONEER

I was damn angry at Mr. Beltracchi.

I wasn't happy with the Cologne verdict. I would've preferred Sharia law.

JAMES ROUNDELL THE SOCIETY OF LONDON ART DEALERS

MR. & MRS. OMMESLAGHE ART COLLECTORS

He should be sent to prison for 10, 15 years at least.

SOFIA KOMAROVA GALLERY MANAGER

Maybe a bit greedy? He made, as far as we know, several million Euros.

Maybe a bit greedy.

But definitely talented and sensitive.

NIKLAS MAAK ART CRITIC

It's a remarkable achievement,

that one man, not a large team, managed to outsmart

the most powerful and knowledgeable players in the international art world.

One after the other.

Like a bad cowboy film.

The cowboy mows down one sheriff after the next.

What happened in the Beltracchi case is rare.

RENÉ ALLONGE CHIEF POLICE DETECTIVE

It was a real challenge to provide evidence,

which speaks for the quality of his forgeries.

Max Ernst wouldn't have been amused.

He was the kind of guy... I never met him,

but from seeing him in photos and videos,

I don't think he would've found it funny. He would've said,

"Lock him up!"

Maybe.

BELTRACCHI - THE ART OF FORGERY

This is the Bec d'Aigle

in La Ciotat.

The Fauvists painted it a lot around the turn of the century.

I've painted it several times.

Friesz and Braque painted here together.

The same landscapes exist

by both painters.

They stood here, the two of them,

just imagine,

probably next to one another,

and painted it.

For me, Friesz was a greater Fauvist painter than Braque

and got pricier due to the rich colors.

They exude so much life. Sun, the south, it's all there.

Of course, the market also sets the prices.

That's for sure.

Here you can put yourself in their place.

1905: They had good times ahead of them.

I can see that now with hindsight.

I know that in 1905 they still have nine years until the war.

That's when the bad times started for them.

I've often wondered if I'd prefer to have lived at that time.

But knowing what was yet to come, the First and Second World Wars,

then I think, "No thanks."

That was totally new when they came here to paint this kind of picture.

No one had ever done it before.

Really fantastic.

I would've liked to do it too.

The edges are very clean. The canvas is a bit thin.

There's hardly any paint left except for the sky.

He really slapped on the white. You can see how it's cracked.

This is typical of early cracking. Technically, his work was very poor.

The undercoat probably had a lot of white lead,

which is why it tore early.

It's nice.

- Is it from Barcelona? - Yes, sir.

- From the 20s. - I think so. Or the early 30s.

It has a good stretcher frame. Nice and ashy.

- Is it expensive? - No, 50 Euros.

50 Euros? What a bargain.

- Here. - Thanks.

No, thank you.

Goodbye.

BELTRACCHI STUDIO (FRANCE)

Here's what we bought.

I'll put them on the table.

I'll get rid of the...

Max Ernst box.

Make some space.

Let's see what beauties we bought.

Why did we buy this?

Firstly, most importantly, look at the back.

How does it look? How old is the stretcher frame?

Then we have this wonderful

stamp from an art dealer

in Barcelona.

I googled it and found out they existed around 1920.

Then the keys.

All excellent. Not many holes.

Just one small one. That can be restored later.

And a bit dusty.

This was my home.

But I still wouldn't want to come back here.

And we wanted to sell it anyway, it's much too big.

We had a wonderful time here with our children and friends.

But it's too big for the two of us.

Every day I spend here, I feel lucky,

and it'll be terrible when we leave,

knowing we'll be in jail three days later.

Will you paint in prison?

Yes, of course.

Mostly drawings, I guess.

Of fellow inmates.

I also have a studio in Cologne.

I can work there, it always rains.

Here it's harder to work.

Great weather, nice parks,

nice area...

There are too many distractions.

They kept looking for this: titanium white.

Titanium white, completely empty.

We always thought you bought art,

and then sold it.

Like on the stock exchange: you sold it for a lot and bought it cheap.

The version I had

was that you invested in ocular prosthetics in the States.

- Nice, I never heard that one. - That's right, ocular prosthetics .

Jacques told me that.

I left as an artist and returned as...

...as Robin Hood.

No, he returned as some kind of artistic genius. Definitely.

He returned as an extraordinary artist.

But in principle...

- It's not good. - It's not good,

but in reality, it is admirable.

Respect.

And in principle, too.

If I were the buyers, I wouldn't have said anything about the fakes.

I would've kept my art and waited.

- Sell it to the neighbors. - Exactly.

That's very French.

We're being forced to sell the house, but if we can,

we'll definitely come back.

By foot, in a camper, by boat, who knows?

Who knows?

I'm setting up a room for you in our basement.

In the basement? I can't live there. Too much like a prison.

BELTRACCHI STUDIO (GERMANY)

What'll that be?

HENRY KEAZOR ART HISTORIAN

We started that in France. In winter, when I was still allowed out.

That'll be the view down by La Ciotat.

On the Côte d'Azur, near Marseille.

That's Émile-Othon Friesz's view.

1907. And that's the same view

by Braque.

- How did you get into forging paintings? - You can sit down. Take a stool.

This thing is driving me crazy.

How did I get started?

Well,

I took my time, bit by bit. Not overnight.

I never studied painting, either.

Just illustration, graphic arts, photography,

all that stuff.

One question:

When does it become a forgery?

If I were to sign it,

then it'd be a forgery.

- The intention alone isn't enough? - No, of course not.

- Want to see? I'll sign it for you. - OK. - Blind!

- That's not necessary. - Without the original.

Without having the signature in front of me. From memory.

What's the guy's name again? Émile-Othon Friesz.

"É."

There's so little space.

This is something I enjoy doing.

There's nothing I couldn't paint. I think I could paint anything.

- You're pretty self-confident. - What do you mean? I can. It's my job.

It's not self-confidence.

Other painters might not make that claim.

- But I can. - Anything?

- Vermeer? - Him, too.

- Rembrandt? - Any of his.

- Leonardo? - Of course. He's not difficult.

- Not at all? - I don't find him difficult. Not at all.

It's not just the technical side.

You said you don't copy paintings, but get inside the painter's head.

- Sure. I could paint a new Leonardo. - New?

Yes, a new one. So what?

- Have you seen your work in a catalog? - Yes.

How did you feel when someone said it's definitely a Campendonk,

- and one of his best? - I thought, "He's right."

- But it's not a Campendonk. - Come on.

So what?

- It's still beautiful. - True. But not a Campendonk.

And the damage to art history and the author?

You and your "damage to art history"...

Yes. If I imagine that happening to me...

I write a catalog or article on a painting and someone says,

"That's a Beltracchi, not a Magritte," I'd be pretty annoyed.

- If you write a catalog of works... - Yes?

...bring it to me first.

Have you faked Poussins or Carraccis?

I knew that was coming.

I've done drawings by old masters.

Drawings?

Sadly, in the art world, there are more people

who know how to make money

than there are works of art.

There's a surplus of financial interests.

And enormous sums of money whirling around.

The record prices for art are broken every year.

There's an inherent market logic

that penalizes depreciation, criticism and doubt,

and rewards appreciation, euphoria, and calling something a masterpiece.

If someone has a painting, and asks, "Could it be a Derain?"

the expert will say,

"It's a Derain."

The auctioneer's excited. He can earn millions from the masterpiece at auction.

The expert pockets a large commission.

The vendor makes money,

and the buyer is excited to see a Derain reappear on the market.

None of the people involved in this system want it to be a fake.

This is a Jawlensky.

Andy Warhol did portraits from Polaroids,

and this is a woman called Laura de Coppet,

who posed for this picture.

This one is a Renoir.

A portrait of a mistress,

the last portrait he did of one of his mistresses.

I especially like the Sam Francis.

- And you? - I like the Renoir.

- This is a... - Matisse.

They're Japanese objects.

I don't think they clash with the Matisse...

I think they fit well.

Now look at this.

That's where the Campendonk was. Now it's a Magritte.

Not as nice.

MR. & MRS. OMMESLAGHE ART COLLECTORS

I lived in the country as a child and this cow symbolized the countryside for me.

So it reminded me of my childhood.

It was so colorful.

I really loved that painting.

When you saw that you'd given me a poisoned gift...

Not for the first time.

We'll cut that out.

Definitely.

My husband is drunk.

All that fake jewelry.

Stop it, Bernard.

Because it's a present

that you gave me yourself, and because you're a sentimental man,

what did you think?

Did you say to yourself: "That was a bad present"?

I was unlucky.

He thought:

"Bad luck for her."

No, I said, it always happens to the same people.

That's true.

However, I got a refund and I bought another present.

All this here is our joint property.

- We don't make lists or anything. - Yes.

But it was still my painting.

If I had kept the painting, I would've hung it in my bedroom

or walk-in closet. In a place

where there are photos and things like that.

Because it's no longer genuine.

- It's no longer a work of art. - It's a decorative object.

It's decoration.

It has some fibers on the back.

Synthetic fiber.

They're fluorescent, see?

Now the edges.

Also white lead.

It has a modern undercoat that reflects strongly.

Also excellent.

It's easy to see because the layers are so thin.

I'll start with this one. It's the most promising.

I can remove the paint, and work on it right away.

There.

Now the paint's off.

The painter I want to do here...

had a painting school in Paris: Marie Vassilieff.

I've never painted her work, but she was high on my list at one point.

I'd planned to do it.

It's from 1913.

She's a good one to do. There are big gaps in the cataloging of her work,

so she's a good candidate.

I'll paint a village view in this style.

The elements I have

on my canvas

after stripping the paint, these lines here...

I'll integrate them into the painting.

And the thicker paint that's still here

will also be integrated.

It'll disappear as I paint on it. It won't be conspicuous anymore.

Painting was never special to me.

In our family, it was like brushing your teeth. We all did it.

It didn't have the holiness,

like with many artists,

who use their paintings, their work or occupation,

and make a big deal of it. I never did that.

I just had fun painting.

I lived with it. It was everyday life. For my father too.

He never learned proper figurative drawing.

He learned to restore frescoes,

to paint fake marble, gilding, fake wood...

Everything you do in a church.

IN LOYAL COMRADESHIP

Whenever he made copies of old masters,

he always asked me, "Have a look at this."

He couldn't paint people.

The first time, that was 1965,

I was allowed to use his paints to copy a Picasso:

Mother and Child from the Blue Period.

But I didn't copy it,

instead I did a different version, because I didn't like it. It was too dismal.

I left out the cape,

and made it all a bit nicer.

Then he stopped painting for a while.

He just didn't feel like it anymore.

Because if he copied something,

he worked on it for weeks.

Meticulously.

That's why I still feel that

it's my father's fault I became a forger.

It all started with

selling at flea markets,

when I was still a student. I sold paintings there.

I noticed I had an eye for which paintings were good.

I bought them too, from all centuries.

I learned a lot, of course,

about the different styles and eras,

how, what and where things developed.

That's the best way to learn:

Find something, buy and restore it. I restored paintings too.

Then resold them.

I did that a few years.

It went well. It was exciting.

Really exciting.

Then I realized

if I had a painting of a winter scene, the dealers, e.g. Drouot in Paris, said,

"If there were characters in the picture,

and a bit of action,

you could get much more money for it,

and it'd be easier to sell."

The problem with that was that some of them

were painted so abysmally.

I could only add figures while keeping to the style.

The dealers came and said, "It's painted badly.

It's only worth 1,500."

So I got annoyed.

Then I thought to myself, "If that's the way it is...

why don't you paint them from scratch?"

I'll make the one breast

into a little tree.

And I'll make the second breast into a house.

Voilà .

Now she's gone.

It's really dark.

Now...

You have to stop at some point or you'll paint it to death.

Sometimes when you see your own painting in a museum you think,

"Damn, I'm in all these museums,

and no one knows it's mine."

Sure, anyone would think that, but it doesn't matter.

The panel is incredibly hot.

The surface reaches 400 degrees.

You have to be very careful.

They're the supports.

Now we put the painting on them.

Normally, for an oil painting, when the paint's quite thick,

it needs six to twelve months to dry.

Then it's dry, old-looking, and the fluorescence is about right.

Then you have to rework it. You wait and see.

Done.

The open prison arrangement

gives us the chance to work together.

It's great that we're allowed to work together outside of prison.

My cell neighbor only sees his wife two or three times a week.

Because he works somewhere else.

But we work together.

We arrive at the studio together in the morning.

We can have breakfast and work together all day. It's a real privilege.

In the evening,

we separate.

From the highway exit where we separate,

it's all mechanical: down the highway, hand in papers at prison,

hand over phone, get key in reception,

into my cell.

Go to bed, switch off the light and the day's over.

Life is over.

If I'd known before

what was in store for me, I never would've done it.

Sure, if she'd never met me,

she never would've been put in jail.

But she also wouldn't have lived the last 20 years like she did.

Now I'm just... I'll just paint the tattoos a bit.

So that...

- Get a tattoo machine and tattoo me. - Forget it. I don't have time for that.

- Find time. - Imagine if I did that.

With my reputation, I'd have loads of customers.

But fewer forgeries.

I don't do forgeries anymore.

But... many people would want me to tattoo them.

Then art dealers would peel off their skin

after they die.

- To make cash? - Sure.

They'd stretch out the skin and sell it...

- I'd make a lampshade out of it. - ...as a painting.

There's a story from Modigliani, a French painter, who...

tattooed someone's back.

I'll put one of my falling angels on you.

I find the tombstones on your back a bit odd.

- If you die first, you'll get one too. - I won't die first.

A fast and furious life is better than a long and boring one.

Long and furious is even better.

Like my life.

Now, wait. I think the position... Can you turn a bit?

A bit more. Exactly.

He told me about his job

after just three days, to tell the truth.

Of course, I was a bit shocked and astonished.

You rarely meet people who do that kind of thing,

but it is his occupation.

It's his way, his life and...

not just a way to earn a living, but his way of life.

You could say it's his calling, if forgery can be termed a "calling".

It was so set in stone. I couldn't have changed anything.

To be honest, I didn't want to change or dissuade him.

I found what he did incredibly interesting.

Skilled.

And sometimes, I know I shouldn't say this: funny.

It was also fun

to follow the whole story and see some of the results.

To finally be with someone

who didn't recognize the boundaries

people had built around me.

He saw no reason to accept any boundaries, he still doesn't and never will.

Show me your picture.

Time to take it out.

Here's the beauty, see it?

Now...

Firstly...

The bottom edge of the canvas frame...

The dust.

The flakes of dust.

Now I stuff them down deep.

In the old paintings, if you look from the front,

you can feel lumps if you touch it.

You can feel some kind of dirt, where the dust has collected.

Now we have the original

Barcelona dirt from 1915.

Fantastic.

Now the painting's finished.

Apart from varnishing.

Done.

It has to dry.

Now it's smoother. Wonderful.

It's good now. But it's still wet.

It's better now. The canvas doesn't have the bulges anymore

that come from the drying.

It doesn't smell of paint. Not at all. Nor of the oven.

Normally now you'd have to... If you wanted to do it perfectly,

you'd have to pack it in a big box,

burn a few hundred cigarettes,

and let the fumes go into the box.

Or hang it up in a bar for half a year.

Back when you could still smoke in bars.

Then you'd have the right smell.

Paintings smell of the room they were hanging in.

I sometimes imagined I could tell from the smell

whether a painting had been hanging in Belgium, Germany or wherever.

They just smell different.

I've never sold a painting myself.

Not personally.

I found it very difficult at first

to go to customers and experts.

There were times...

when I couldn't deliver a painting.

I just couldn't do it.

I lost my nerve and tried somehow

to let it disappear.

But after a while, when you've done it a few times,

you notice how the experts and dealers take it for granted

when they accept a painting,

and it gets a lot easier.

I'd even say:

it's easier to sell a painting for half a million

- than it is for ten thousand. - Why?

Then no one thinks it's fake anymore.

If goods are in demand, they should also be produced,

so trade can take place.

I'm not saying that dealers expect you to produce forgeries for them,

but they're very happy to find anything that can be sold.

We have to put the hooks in.

- Put that in the frame. - Does it fit?

There are two possibilities:

The first

would be to paint a lost painting.

The second would be an imaginary gap in the artist's work,

a gap you just imagine is there.

Of course, we did both options.

So you need a painting which isn't in the catalog of works,

but nonetheless appears in literature.

And no one knows where it is.

Nor what it looked like.

Because it's not in the catalog of work.

So all you really need

is a good story,

so every art historian or expert who deals in such matters

can research it.

We always left them traces so they could find stuff out on their own.

It's disgusting.

The idea came from my husband.

When we met, my grandfather had just died,

Werner Jägers. And after he died,

and we couldn't really offend or hurt him,

we invented this fairytale about him being an art collector.

But everything else we said about him was the truth.

The silk wallpaper was more difficult.

Now take it from both sides, and run your hands along it.

He did have some paintings, but they were more like...

19th-century decorative art.

Not valuable paintings, but he was interested in art and paintings.

Finished.

Fantastic collection.

Really.

Five million,

5.5 million,

one million,

1.7 million, I think, or 1.5 million.

Not bad, right?

Mr. Jägers, whom they made up, existed, but not as an art collector.

NIKLAS MAAK ART CRITIC

He lived in the Rhineland, which has a very strong network,

where it would be almost impossible for a collector of that scale

to live without anyone at all knowing anything about him.

Seeing as Mr. Jägers really did exist, not as an art collector, but as a person,

someone could've researched who he actually was. Just out of curiosity.

Any art enthusiast would want to know everything about him.

In auction catalogs,

at Christie's or Sotheby's,

you see old photographs.

"In 19-whatever, at this collector's..."

So I thought, we can do that too.

Don't be so...

- Did you put on make-up? - No.

- No? - Why would I?

- Look at me. - They didn't wear make-up back then.

- How does it work? - A little hook.

Look. How does this work?

- Some technician you are. - I'm totally unskilled.

- You click this, and push... - Oh, I didn't know that.

How?

Looks strange.

- Like this? - That's OK.

I'll take the camera first.

There. I'll do the same one again.

Then I'll come over,

and take a photo from the front.

Sit facing the front more.

- Like this? - We did two photo walls.

One photo just with my paintings hanging, and the other

was an exhibition

with one of my paintings hanging between the others.

It was very nice, just the Léger.

I'm still proud of it. It was a great stunt.

They never really found out.

Even the state police.

They've given up hope on that photo.

They don't know where it could've come from.

Now one from here.

Hands like this? Or down?

Not so tense. A bit more relaxed.

And one, two, three...

There's a magical moment in literature

when you're reading and forget it's fiction.

Like a kid hearing a fairytale: He's there in that forest.

It's not Brothers Grimm, but him with the big bad wolf.

That's what Beltracchi did. He told them a story and...

everyone who heard it wanted it to be true.

They were spellbound by this story of Uncle Jägers.

I met Werner Spies in Sète.

I reserved a room for Werner Spies at Grand Hotel in Sète.

I collected him in the morning from the hotel and we drove to the domain.

Werner Spies isn't just a Max Ernst expert.

He's also responsible for Picasso.

I wasn't exactly scared of him,

but as an expert, he really...

commands enormous respect.

I was dying to know:

Can we really fool him?

It was incredibly exciting.

The desire to experience that and see what happened, was huge.

Stronger than the fear.

It's always like the first day of school.

Or when you haven't done your homework. Everyone has felt that: the hot ears,

your heart beating, moist hands, and trying to stay cool,

so the teacher doesn't realize.

But he had already seen the scientific assessment.

Facing that situation, you ask yourself, "How will he react?"

Maybe he'll immediately say,

"Impossible,"

"Forget it," or "I won't accept that."

Or he'd get all upset, you never know.

Then he looked at the painting.

It was hanging over there.

And we sat here for an hour or an hour and a half,

talking about the painting, about Max Ernst,

about art in general. He looked at all the art in the house.

Then we went back to Sète, had some food...

We had a last look at the view over Sète.

Then he got on a train with his wife and went back to Paris.

He gave it a certificate

and included the painting in the catalog. That was it.

THE ILLUSTRATED WORK IS TO BE ENTERED

INTO THE CATALOG OF WORKS FOR WHICH I AM RESPONSIBLE

WERNER SPIES

The role of Werner Spies is a tragic one.

He made serious procedural errors.

He was deceived in several cases,

didn't recognize the forgeries.

He received huge commissions,

all of which were deposited in offshore accounts.

He didn't reveal this important information at the hearing.

RENÉ ALLONGE CHIEF POLICE DETECTIVE

Instead, later on the forgeries that were back in circulation

were requested for exhibitions in Stockholm and Humlebaek in Denmark.

That's where I say: He really shouldn't have done that.

Fantastic.

Isn't it great? The stairs really do it.

Say what you like, it's just great.

Right, OK.

Great.

- Got it? - Yeah.

Go on.

- Come on. - I am.

So... now on its side.

- What's on the floor? - Shit.

Done. Great.

Good.

I'll do a little dove here.

Like he always did.

Sweetie...

Now we'll nail it on the wall,

so that it...

doesn't collect dust overnight.

It's going to be a fantastic painting.

The best Max Ernst I've ever painted.

I say that every time.

It looks crazy...

You don't have to be a genius to do a painting like that.

- To have the idea? - The idea...

To trace over a floorboard? Other people have thought of that.

- Who? - No idea.

I'm sure someone or other has.

It's hardly groundbreaking.

An idea doesn't make you a great painter.

- So Max Ernst isn't a genius? - No, I don't think he is.

Done.

If Max Ernst was first, and he was...

then I adapted it, maybe made it better than the original.

Maybe my forest is even more beautiful. Better, if you want to evaluate it.

Because I am adding to his.

I need to say something. I've always had

a certain virginity complex

about white canvases.

When I sat in front of a white canvas

to start something, to paint something,

I found it almost impossible to put the first dab on the canvas.

I had to find a way of overcoming it. And I found it...

In 1925,

on a rainy day, alone in a guesthouse by the sea.

I stared at the faded and worn-down wooden floorboards,

and realized that the grains in the wood were moving.

To strengthen the meditation,

I took some tracings from the wood.

I let pieces of paper fall on the floor at random

and then rubbed over them with black pencil.

I was surprised by the sudden increase in my visionary powers.

JAMES ROUNDELL THE SOCIETY OF LONDON ART DEALERS

A bit more there.

Good.

You know what's a pity?

That I won't get five million for it.

That's a real pity.

We built a nice house. And another.

Other people do that too. That's not megalomania.

Just because I planted 1000 trees.

It was nice.

We knew something was coming.

We knew it

for a year.

Off with it.

I was with them both in France at the time.

FRANZISKA BELTRACCHI (DAUGHTER)

I asked my dad whose paintings he was burning.

He said they were his, but I didn't believe him.

I just couldn't understand it.

BELTRACCHI VILLA IN FREIBURG, GERMANY

We knew nothing about it at first.

We knew our dad was an artist,

but we always had the impression he didn't work all that much.

MANUEL SCHNEE (SON)

He said he was an art dealer. He seemed to be doing well with it,

if you saw how we lived.

We'd always just see one painting that he was painting on the side.

So we'd always think, "He's lazy, he doesn't do anything."

I always ask myself,

"How did we not realize?"

I felt a bit stupid that I didn't realize the whole time.

At first, you think, "What do we really know about our parents?"

Here's the Lempertz catalog.

With the painting with the red horses.

That was the catalyst

for the whole affair.

Heinrich Campendonk,

Red Picture with Horses.

Or what's it called?

Yes, Red Picture with Horses. 1914.

Beautiful painting.

It was considered the best Campendonk to date.

Also the most expensive ever sold. It cost nearly three million Euros.

It has the study on the back.

Then there was the label

from Flechtheim,

which suddenly turned out not to be real anymore.

But it existed for the last 20 years.

Then it was in the auction

in 2006.

And that's when

things slowly started to seethe.

FLECHTHEIM COLLECTION

The person who bought that painting

was a private buyer,

one of our gallery's most important clients.

SOFIA KOMAROVA GALLERY MANAGER

He called me the day after the purchase, on November 30, 2006,

asking me to handle the transaction.

That's when I first saw a photo of the painting.

The painting itself I saw much later.

First impressions:

an extraordinary work.

An extraordinary rarity,

which combines

the best of Campendonk.

In the catalog,

there was no illustration,

no technical details.

There was just a very long title,

Red Picture with Horses.

Nothing else.

HENRIK HANSTEIN AUCTIONEER

Shortly after, I met a museum director, who said, "Finally a superb Campendonk."

I think this was his masterpiece.

He didn't just fake paintings, he filled in the gaps in the literature.

That's not necessarily a new trick.

I contacted the Lempertz auction house

to request a certificate of authenticity

from a Campendonk specialist.

We said, "Sure."

Mrs. Beltracchi became very involved with the catalog editor

who requested a laboratory investigation, which was carried out.

With these paintings, these fakes, you can't smell anything at all.

RENÉ ALLONGE CHIEF POLICE DETECTIVE

We still don't know how many forgeries he really did,

and how many forgeries are in circulation.

That's a secret he could reveal if he wanted to.

But it makes him interesting and he takes advantage of that too.

I did around 300

paintings and drawings.

Between 1970 and 2010.

I could've done 2,000 and the market would've taken them.

NICHOLAS EASTAUGH CONSERVATION SCIENTIST

I wondered, where did that damn titanium white come from?

I didn't mix the white for that painting myself.

I just used a tube.

I was just lazy.

That painting being a fake...

I can't believe it.

The communication between Mr. Hanstein and Mr. and Mrs. Beltracchi

started over a forgery.

In 1995,

the couple delivered a painting by Hans Purrmann.

Then just before the sale,

the expert, Mrs. Purrmann, protested,

stating that the painting was a forgery.

So Lempertz withdrew it.

It was the first contact

between Mr. Hanstein and the so-called collectors.

We fell victim to a very smooth fraudster, like many of our colleagues.

There's no need to mention that it really wasn't much fun.

Behind every canvas,

especially those from the early 20th century,

there's a whole universe.

What happened in Germany, in Europe,

just before 1914?

Painters like Campendonk anticipated the impending tragedy.

It's not a nice painting of horses.

There's tragedy behind it.

It shows the painter's boldness

as he anticipates what's ahead.

To know the tragedy that's coming, and to still decide to paint.

And then you discover

there's nothing behind it.

It's just painted in his style.

There's no tragedy.

No tears. No historical context

inherent in each painting,

especially in the early 20th century.

Not in there. It'd be too heavy on the glass. Get a new one.

We were going to eat in a restaurant. We were driving down the hill,

when some police squads

stopped us.

They told us to get out and stand by the car.

They had guns and dogs.

Which was over-the-top. They know my father isn't dangerous.

We stood out in the rain,

next to the car, and the policeman said,

"Do you have a license?" I said, "Yes." "OK, you drive the car home."

So I drove the car to the garage.

I was scared. Scared for my parents too.

I didn't know when they'd be back. Tomorrow, in a week...

a month, a year...

I was just scared.

I think it's fantastic, and it characterizes the house,

that you can see in or out everywhere. It makes many people nervous. Not us.

I hope someone buys it

who understands that.

It doesn't really matter.

He can do what he wants, like build walls around it.

Après moi le déluge.

The material costs caused by Beltracchi, as far as we're concerned,

will be limited, because, as part of the investigation,

Mr. Beltracchi's real estate was seized in favor of our customers.

It will be liquidated very soon,

meaning Lempertz customers won't suffer any loss.

It was very clear to me and my wife in recent years,

that at some point things would go bad. We just felt it.

It had to go wrong.

We actually wanted to stop. I wanted to.

I thought, "Two more paintings for another ten million wouldn't be bad."

I still wanted to do those.

I wanted to buy a palazzo in Venice.

I was into that idea.

I thought, "Just two more and then it's over."

Then I swapped the palazzo for a cell.

All of my letters. They're all mine.

These are Wolfgang's.

8,000 pages.

We wrote every day. Every day.

This one's nice. A prisoner gave me a heart-shaped candy.

Which I then gave to my husband.

My cell looked exactly like my husband's.

It faced the same direction. He had the same daily routine.

Different officers and male prisoners, but otherwise almost identical.

Wolfgang is much stronger than me.

Hopelessness doesn't exist for him.

With his attitude to life, and his desire, his desire to put it all behind him,

he carried me with him,

otherwise I wouldn't have made it. I'm not that strong.

We're currently working on a book.

To tell our story.

And regain our footing by doing what we can,

and using that to move forward again.

You can work creatively

and also obey the law.

- How are you? - Good, thanks. You?

As you might expect.

How often are you here?

- Every day. - Every day?

- It's still not pleasant. - Well, yes.

As they indicate in the papers...

HENRY KEAZOR ART HISTORIAN

- Isn't it supposed to be a punishment? - Exactly. I feel really punished.

What's this?

That's one of mine, but it's not finished.

- They're always unfinished. - Why's that?

Because they get abandoned.

- You're not scared to finish them? - No.

It was like that when I was arrested.

It wasn't finished yet.

And it's related to the Inquisition,

a subject I was working on at the time.

- Is that a fallen angel? - Yes. - You like angels.

- What do they mean... - Always did.

I think it's because my father always took me to churches as a child.

They resonated with you.

What does an angel mean to you?

Well, for me it's...

An angel...

is a bit of hope, a sign of hope, something like that.

I'm not devoutly religious, but an angel

symbolizes that for me.

Hope.

How far is it from completion?

There's still a lot to do. I'll add a border.

And here on the main part,

there will be... What's it called? Confetti.

It'll be partly gold...

I think a large part of the public will want to see the forgeries.

A so-called Ernst-Beltracchi, which is both an Ernst painting and a Beltracchi.

So you have two famous names. There'll be a large market for that.

The other question is what you would put on the market as Wolfgang Beltracchi.

The bar is high. People will have high expectations.

I'm not sure what you plan on putting out there.

I think this is the safer option,

because it's something people know and what they want.

I'm curious to see how your other work is received.

I don't know if you'll have the same success.

They might say,

"So that's what it looks like. I prefer the Ernst-Beltracchi."

That's how I see it too.

How much blood and tears went into that?

- None at all. - None?

No, I just have fun doing it.

My passion is reserved for my wife and children.

I'm more pragmatic.

You have a distanced relationship to art?

Yes. You get that way when you deal with it all the time.

- With the art market or with art? - The market.

I just want 20,000. Or 25,000.

We'll see what happens.

But not less. No way.

It's a lot of work.

It's not forgery-proof, but I don't mind.

I've thought about that for a long time.

Why should my paintings be forgery-proof?

Let people forge them.

I should be the last person to let that bother me, right?