(Credit: AP/ Peter Endig)

A woman looks at a painting by forger Han van Meegeren, which he sold as Jan Vermeer’s painting Christ and the Adultress. Also pictured is a forgery of Vincent van Gogh’s painting The Sower by Leonhard Wackerforger at a 2014 exhibition of fakes at Moritzburg art museum in Germany.

Credit: (AP / dapd)

Wolfgang Beltracchi’s wife Helene poses as her own grandmother in front of forged paintings. At left is an artwork supposedly by Ferdinand Leger, unidentified paintings in the middle, and at right, Tremblement de Terre supposedly by Max Ernst. The couple staged this old family photograph as a back story for the forged paintings to prove their authenticity.

(Credit: AP / Peter Endig)

A woman studies the forgery Zwei rote Pferde in der Landschaf (Two Red Horses in Landscape), which was created in the style of artist Heinrich Campendonk by forger Wolfgang Beltracchi.

(Credit: Art Analysis & Research)

The pigment collection of Dr. Nicholas Eastaugh and Dr. Jilleen Nadolny of Art Analysis & Research. The collection is comprised of over 3,000 provenanced samples. Eastaugh’s technical investigations of Beltracchi’s work uncovered his fraud, and the pair has performed analyses of a number of the forger’s other works.

(Credit: AP / Henning Kaiser)

German art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi.

(Credit: AP/ JONATHON ZIEGLER / PatrickMcMullan.com)

Ann Freedman, gallerist and former president of the now defunct Knoedler & Company, September 2014.

(Credit: AP / Lefteris Pitarakis)

An encaustic Stars and Stripes painting entitled Flag, made between 1960–1966 by U.S. artist Jasper Johns.

(Credit: AP/Larry Neumeister)

Former New York foundry owner Brian Ramnarine leaves federal court in Manhattan after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison for trying to sell phony knockoffs of a sculpture of Jasper Johns’ Flag painting. Ramnarine had done work for Johns in the past, including casting a sculpture of Johns’ classic 1960 Flag painting.

(Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer)

Lawrence Salander, center, leaves New York Supreme Court with his son Jonah, right, and his attorney Charles Ross in New York. Salander pleaded guilty to 29 counts of grand larceny and fraud and was sentenced to 6 to 18 years in prison.

(Credit: AP/Max Nash)

Michael Bakwin’s Bouilloire et Fruits, painted by French impressionist Paul Cézanne, sells at a 1999 Sotheby’s auction in London for $29 million.

(Credit: AP / Charles Krupa)

Michael Bakwin holds up two paintings that were returned to him at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston in 2010. The two oil paintings by Jean Jansem were stolen from Bakwin and were returned following the 2008 trial of Robert Mardirosian. Bakwin had not seen the paintings since the 1978 theft.

(Credit: U.S. Department of Justice)

A fake of Picasso’s La Femme au Chapeau Bleu (The Woman in the Blue Hat), unwittingly created by a trompe l’oeil artist for dealer Tatiana Khan. Khan told the artist it was needed to aid the police, then attempted to pass it off as an authentic Picasso.