A new EU law aimed at preventing the sale of looted antiquities is set to go into effect Saturday. While Regulation 2019/880 has a partial exemption for temporary exhibitions, the law may still hamper loans from private collectors, according to a new report from the Art Newspaper.
The new law, first introduced six years ago, stipulates that any party which imports cultural goods from outside the EU will have “heightened due diligence requirements.” Cultural goods refer to fine arts, antiquities, decorative arts, and collectible items.
An advisory note published by the insurance company Lockton said the law is “intended to tackle the illicit trade of goods from countries affected by armed conflict, and where those goods may have been traded by terrorist or other criminal organisations.”
The three categories of cultural goods are 1) ones that have been unlawfully exported from third countries, 2) products from archaeological excavations more than 250 years old, regardless of their value and 3) various types of goods greater than 200 years old with a value above €18,000.
Goods from the second category will require an import license prior to their entry into the EU, and importers need to supply evidence the items were not illegally exported. Goods from the third category require an importer statement with a signed declaration they were also not illegally exported as well as a standardized description of the items.
Implementation of the new law will depend on the actions of individual EU member states, but non-compliance with Regulation 2019/880 could result in seizures and other legal consequences for art dealers, collectors, and other art professionals.
“Where importers lack the required documentation for such items, the entire shipment may be compounded,” Will Ferrer, Lockton’s head of fine art, wrote. “Alternatively, where importers submit false evidence in the course of an import license application, or make a reckless or knowingly fraudulent declaration, there may be criminal consequences. With a greater risk of confiscation, private collectors may also show more caution when deciding where, and to which institutions, to loan their works. This may hinder the efforts of certain institutions to secure works for loan.”
Regulation 2019/880 does have an exemption for “the purpose of education, science, conservation, restoration, exhibition, digitisation, performing arts, research conducted by academic institutions or cooperation between museums or similar institutions.” But the Art Newspaper noted that implementing regulation 2021/1079 limits the exemption to temporary loans from museums outside the EU—meaning private non-EU lenders do not benefit from it.
The new law was designed in response to looting of cultural heritage and archaeological sites in Syria and Iraq. Regulation 2019/880 also mandates digital records to enhance transparency and traceability through a International Cultural Goods (ICG) database. Museums only benefit from the law’s exemptions by registering for the ICG database.
Several art professionals told the Art Newspaper they did not question the aim of the law, but it would add a level of administrative difficulty, especially for works with incomplete documentation or complex histories of ownership.
Eike Schmidt, the director of the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, said there is “a complete lack of administrative infrastructure” for the proper implementation of Regulation 2019/880. “Just consider the thousands of administrative officials, archaeologists, art historians, and restorers who would need to be hired to cope with the avalanche of requests,” he told the Art Newspaper.
“For many museums, requirements for import licenses and provenance proof may hinder international loans and exhibitions,” Tone Hansen, the director of the Munch Museum in Oslo told the Art Newspaper.
Ferrer also wrote that the new EU legislation will likely to increase the need for private collectors to do provenance research before selling goods from their collections.
“Collectors may find themselves in a difficult position of conducting the appropriate provenance research on a given item, with the knowledge that such research could reveal gaps or inconsistencies in provenance that complicate their efforts to sell.”
He also noted that for art dealers and institutions, seizure is excluded from insurance coverage as standard, and when an artwork loses value due to uncertain provenance, it’s unlikely the owner would be compensated by insurers.
“As a result, policyholders will not be covered in the event that any works are seized upon entry into the EU. However, insurers may be able to grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis. For example, insurers may be more inclined to provide cover to borrowing institutions for a single loan for exhibitions in their home country, where that country has a clearly defined set of rules around seizure.”
The FBI recently recovered two paintings stolen four decades ago from the University of New Mexico’s Harwood Museum of Art in Taos.
Victor Higgins’s oil painting Aspens (c. 1932) and Joseph Henry Sharp’s portrait Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress (c. 1915) were stolen in March 1985 from the institution, which was “primarily a public library at the time with a museum on the second floor,” according to a press release from the FBI.
According to the University, the FBI investigation was prompted by a phone call from Los Angeles–based investigative reporter Lou Schachter to Harwood Museum of Art executive director Juniper Leherissey in late 2023. Schachter said he had uncovered “substantial evidence” connecting the theft of the two paintings with the theft of Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ocher (1954–55) from the University of Arizona Museum of Art. That artwork was returned to the university in 2017 after being a cold case for 32 years, and a 2022 documentary profiling the thieves behind the art theft—Rita and Jerry Alter of Cliff, New Mexico—included a still photo showing the stolen paintings by Higgins and Sharp in the couple’s living room.
That call prompted Leherissey to lead an Art Recovery Task Force focused on gathering additional evidence, including dozens of documents and notices about the thefts on national and international stolen art lists, which was eventually presented to FBI Special Agent Susan Garst on March 25, 2024. Less than a month later, the FBI confirmed it would take on the museum’s case in April of last year.
“As a result of Schachter’s earlier investigations, it was confirmed that both Harwood paintings were sold in 2018 by the Scottsdale Auction House: Higgins’s Aspens sold for $93,600 and Sharp’s Oklahoma Cherokee aka Indian Boy in Full Dress sold for $52,650. It is noteworthy that the Scottsdale Auction House in its 2018 auction catalog advertised the paintings with changed titles as Fall Landscape and Indian in a War Bonnet, which are not cited in any documentation as the artists’ titles,” according to a story published by the University of New Mexico about the theft.
The paintings were located, recovered, and returned to the Harwood Museum of Art on May 12, and were publicly unveiled at a press event on June 6.
“It’s a joy—and a profound relief—to welcome these works by Victor Higgins and Joseph Henry Sharp back to the Harwood,” Leherissey said in a press statement. Leherissey was in elementary school when the theft occurred in 1985, as well as a frequent visitor to the Harwood Public Library and its small art gallery.“ This homecoming means so much—not just to our staff, board, and members, but to the entire arts and cultural community of Taos. We can’t wait to celebrate their return with everyone.”
Notably, the thefts of Aspens and Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress occurred nine years before The Theft of Major Artwork (18 U.S.C. 668) was passed in 1994. The statute made it a federal offense to steal any object of cultural heritage from a museum or library.
The Harwood Museum of Art is now exhibiting Aspens and Oklahoma Cheyenne aka Indian Boy in Full Dress, along with other works by the two painters from its collection, in its new show “The Return of Taos Treasures.”
Sharp was a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, of which Higgins was also an influential member. Higgins was also a member of Harwood’s founding Board in 1923.
A London art dealer was recently sentenced to two years and six months for failing to declare he sold artworks to a collector sanctioned by the US government since 2019 for giving money to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.
Oghenochuko Ojiri was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales after pleading guilty in May to eight charges of failing to disclose potential terrorist financing. On May 8, he was charged by Metropolitan Police as “the first person to be charged with a specific offence under section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000.”
The charges occurred after an investigation into terrorist financing by officers from the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit (NTFIU), part of the police department’s Counter Terrorism Command, in partnership with the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) in His Majesty’s Treasury, His Majesty’s Revenue and Custom (the organization that regulates the art sector), and the Met’s Arts & Antiques Unit.
Justice Cheema-Grubb said Ojiri had been aware the works he had sold were going to Nazem Ahmad, who had been sanctioned in 2019 by the US authorities.
“These offenses are so severe that only a custodial sentence can be justified,” Cheema-Grubb said. “Your hard work, talent and charisma has brought you a great deal of success … you knew you should not have been dealing with that man.”
According to BBC News, Cheema-Grubb added that there was no evidence Ojiri supported any form of extremism but that his conduct undermined the detection of terrorist financing.
Barrister Gavin Irwin, who represented Ojiri, told BBC News the art dealer’s “humiliation is complete” through the loss of “his good name” and the “work he loves.”
“He’d like to apologize for undermining trust” in the art market, Irwin said, and called Ojiri naive.
In addition to owning a namesake gallery in East London, Ojiri appeared as an art expert on the BBC antiques show Bargain Hunt and other programs.
Ojiri’s motivation for the transactions with Ahmad appeared “to be financial along with a broader desire to boost his gallery’s reputation within the art market by dealing with such a well-known collector,” Bethan David, head of the CPS Counter Terrorism Division, told BBC News.
The evidence presented in court from UK law enforcement included a prepared statement from Ojiri that said “he had no reason to believe Ahmad was a terrorist and money launderer.” However, evidence later seized from Ojiri’s phone showed the art dealer had researched Ahmad’s identity and knew about the Lebanese-Belgian art collector being sanctioned by the US.
In addition from a warning from a colleague against doing business with Ahmad, Ojiri had saved Ahmad as ‘Moss Collector’ in his contacts to obscure his identity, and had received email and Instagram messages, reported BBC News.
Ahmad was also sanctioned in 2023 for violating and evading US sanctions through $440 million worth of imports and exports in art and diamonds, according to federal prosecutors. Eight others, including several of his family members, were also charged.
Police said Ojiri’s charges under the Terrorism Act 2000 are aimed at sending “a clear message” to the art world about the need for due diligence to ensure compliance with anti–money laundering and terrorist financing measures requiring the reporting of any suspicious transactions.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently announced that it will return three ancient sculptures to Iraq, dating from 3rd to 2nd millennium BCE. They are estimated to be collectively worth $500,000.
The items are a Sumerian vessel made of gypsum alabaster (ca. 2600–2500 BCE) and two Babylonian terracotta sculptures (ca. 2000-1600 BCE) depicting a male head and a female head, respectively. The museum said it was making the return in “cooperation with the Manhattan DA’s office,” and that the return had come after the Met had “received new information” amid the investigation into Robin Symes, a dealer accused of being a member of a network that traded in looted artifacts.
A press release from the DA’s Office said that the Symes investigation has resulted in the seizure of 135 antiquities valued at more than $58 million. The release also noted that two of the items were seized by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU) earlier this year.
The two Babylonian ceramic sculptures are thought to be from Isin, an archaeological site in Iraq, and were looted in the late 1960s. The Manhattan DA’s office noted that Head of a male was then smuggled out of Iraq and was in Symes’s possession in London by 1971. The next year, Symes sold the sculpture to the Met; it remained in the institution’s collection until it was seized by the ATU.
Vessel supported by two rams was first offered to the Met in 1956 by Switzerland-based antiquities dealer-trafficker Nicolas Koutoulakis, “who informed the museum that the Vessel had been found at a site near the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur. The Vessel then passed through multiple private collectors and dealers, including Symes, before permanently entering The Met’s collection in 1989,” according to the Manhattan DA’s office.
The museum’s press release said the vessel was gifted to the museum in 1989 by the Norbert Schimmel Trust, named after a longtime trustee who died in 1990. The museum noted that “it appeared on the Baghdad art market, was purchased by Swiss dealer Nicolas Koutoulakis by 1956 and later acquired by Cecile de Rothschild.”
“The Met is committed to the responsible collecting of art and the shared stewardship of the world’s cultural heritage and has made significant investments in accelerating the proactive research of our collection,” Max Hollein, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s director and CEO, said in a press statement. “The Museum is grateful for our ongoing conversations with Iraq regarding future collaborative endeavors, and we look forward to working together to advance our shared dedication to fostering knowledge and appreciation of Iraqi art and culture.”
“We continue to recover and return antiquities that were trafficked by Robin Symes,” District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. said in a press statement. “That is a testament to the hard work of attorneys, analysts and investigators who are committed to undoing the significant damage traffickers have caused to our worldwide cultural heritage.”
H. E. Nazar Al Khirullah, Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to the US, described the leadership of the ATU as “instrumental” in the recovery of his country’s looted heritage. “We also appreciate our strong and ongoing partnership with The Met, whose commitment to cultural preservation complements our shared mission to safeguard the world’s antiquities,” he said in a press statement.
Symes’s legacy of trafficking antiquities includes 351 antiquities returned to Greece after a 17-year legal battle, two antiquities worth $1.26 million returned to Libya, 750 artifacts recovered by Italy, a limestone elephant returned to Iraq, and an alabaster female figure returned to Yemen, all in 2023.
Symes was convicted of contempt of court for lying about antiquities he held in storage locations around the world in 2005. He was sentenced to two years in prison, but only served seven months. He died in 2023.
Authorities in Peru are searching for the vandal responsible for spray-painting the image of a penis on a wall of Chan Chan, an ancient archaeological city 300 miles north of Lima.
The vandalism, which was filmed, was dealt to one of the original walls of the more than 600-year-old pre-Columbian city. The Chan Chan Archaeological Zone is operated by Peru’s Ministry of Culture, and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
According to Artnet, a video appeared on Facebook on May 12 of an individual wearing a white T-shirt, and carrying a black backpack, marking a large section of the mud plaster walls with black spray paint. After the video went viral online, it prompted the Peruvian ministry of culture to release a statement.
“This act constitutes a serious lack of respect for our historical and cultural legacy, and represents a violation of the norms that protect archaeological heritage,” the ministry stated, adding that it had also launched an investigation against the people responsible for the vandalism and filed a criminal complaint.
The Andina News Agency reported the act of vandalism falls under Article 226 of Peru’s Penal Code, meaning that the person found responsible for the damage could face a heavy fine and up to six years of imprisonment. The Andina News Agency is a news service owned and operated by the Peruvian government.
Shortly after the incident, Peru’s tourist police inspected the damaged wall at Chan Chan before the Ministry of Culture sent a team to clean and restore the site to its original condition.
Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimú kingdom before it fell to the Incas in the 15th century, has been described by UNESCO as “the largest earthen architecture city in pre-Columbian America.” Its “extensive, hierarchically planned remains” are “an absolute masterpiece of town planning” and comprise “nine large rectangular complexes (‘citadels’ or ‘palaces’) delineated by high thick earthen walls.”
The damage at Chan Chan follows the arrest of a man in February for damaging a 500-year-old artifact known as the 12-angle-stone. Surveillance cameras captured video of a man using a metal object to damage the 500-year-old “emblematic stone structure” in six places.
A London art dealer recently pled guilty to selling artworks to a collector sanctioned by the US government since 2019 for giving money to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.
Oghenochuko Ojiri pled guilty today to eight charges of failing to disclose potential terrorist financing during a court hearing in London. On May 8, he was charged by Metropolitan Police as “the first person to be charged with a specific offence under section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000.”
The charges occurred after an investigation into terrorist financing by officers from the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit (NTFIU), part of the police department’s Counter Terrorism Command, in partnership with the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) in His Majesty’s Treasury, His Majesty’s Revenue and Custom (the organization that regulates the art sector), and the Met’s Arts & Antiques Unit.
The New York Times reported that Ojiri, 53, owned a namesake gallery in East London and appeared as an art expert on the BBC antiques show Bargain Hunt and other programs.
Prosecutor Lyndon Harris told the court in London that Ojiri had sold several artworks to Nazem Ahmad, and the art dealer knew Ahmad was suspected to be a financier of terrorism by the United States and Britain due to Ahmad’s links to Hezbollah and the existing sanctions.
Harris also said that in addition to negotiating the sales of artworks, Ojiri had dealt with Ahmad directly and congratulated him on the acquisitions which were transported to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and Beirut.
“At the time of the transactions, Mr. Ojiri knew that Nazem Ahmad had been sanctioned in the U.S. as a suspected terrorist financier,” Harris said. “Mr. Ojiri accessed news reports about Mr. Ahmad’s designation and engaged in discussions with others about it, indicating his knowledge or suspicions.”
The New York Times also reported that in prosecution documents summarizing the case against Ahmand, Ojiri stated the art dealer filled out paperwork connected to art sales for Ahmad in the names of “other individuals suggested by Mr. Ahmad’s associates, in what is alleged to be an attempt to disguise the true owner of the works of art.”
A press statement from the Metropolitan Police said the eight charges “relate to a period from October 2020 to December 2021.” Harris said the value of the artworks that Ojiri sold to Ahmad between October 2020 and January 2022 was approximately £140,000 ($186,000).
In 2023 Ahmad was charged by federal prosecutors with nine counts for violating and evading US sanctions through $440 million worth of imports and exports in art and diamonds. Eight others, including several of his family members, were also charged.
Dutch police recently arrested two more suspects in connection with the theft of Romanian artifacts from the Drents Museum in Assen, the Netherlands earlier this year in January.
“These suspects are a 20-year-old man and an 18-year-old man, both from Heerhugowaard. Both men will be questioned about their role in the art theft from the Drents Museum. The stolen masterpieces have not been found,” according to a translated statement from the Netherlands Police.
The 20-year-old suspect was seen in images recorded by security cameras at a hardware store in Assen. The individual in those images “emerged as a suspect because he bought a dead blow hammer and a sledgehammer at the hardware store in Assen which were similar to the tools used in the robbery a few days later,” according to the NL Times, which first reported news of the arrests.
These security camera images were posted on the website of the Netherlands Police as well as on Facebook and Instagram.
Immediately after the arrests of the two suspects on April 23, police searched a house in Heerhugowaard. Earlier that day, police officers had already searched a house in Opmeer and a business premises in Heerhugowaard. The police statement said investigators seized digital data carriers, “among other things”.
“The investigation into the stolen masterpieces from the Drents Museum does not stop with these arrests,” the police statement said. “Tracking down these pieces is still our priority.”
The stolen artifacts included the golden helmet of Coțofenești and three golden bracelets from 450 BCE that date back to the ancient Dacians, who inhabited parts of the Balkan region.
The Cotofenesti helmet was made of solid gold, weighed a little over two pounds, and featured elaborate decoration, including large studies and a scene sacrificing a lamb. It also dated back to 450 BCE.
The artifacts were included in the traveling exhibition “Dacia – Empire of Gold and Silver” from the National History Museum of Romania, which had been on display at the Drents Museum since July 2024. The objects were stolen in the middle of the night on January 24, 2025.
RTV Drenthe previously reported that it had translated documents showing the value of the stolen helmet was €4.3 million ($4.9 million) and that the three stolen bracelets each had an estimated value of €500,000 ($568,000).
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said the stolen items were “of incalculable value” and Harry Tupan, the Drents Museum director, had called the theft a “dark day” in the institution’s history.
“We are intensely shocked by the events last night at the museum,” Tupan in a statement immediately after the theft. “In its 170-year existence, there has never been such a major incident.”
The Netherlands Police statement said after the arrest of the two suspects from Heerhugowaard, they would be taking those images offline and and requested everyone who shared the images to also remove them.
Prior to the arrests of the two suspects on April 23, Dutch police made three arrests on January 29, a fourth one in February, and a fifth on April 15. Four of these suspects are currently in custody.
In February, Bucharest-based Dutch businessman Alex van Breeman announced he was increasing the reward from €100,000 ($113,550 USD) to €250,000 ($284,870 USD) for valuable tips leading to the recovery of the stolen artifacts.
An owner of a pawn shop in Los Angeles was recently indicted for allegedly conspiring to sell a stolen Andy Warhol trial proof print of Vladimir Lenin and then lying about it to the FBI.
Glenn Steven Bednarsh has been charged in a two-count federal grand jury indictment with conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen goods, according to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California on April 22.
Bednarsh, who used to reside in Beverly Hills and now lives in Farmington, Michigan, is expected to be arranged “in the coming weeks” in a US District Court in downtown LA.
The indictment alleges that Bednarsh “knowingly purchased” a stolen grey and yellow Warhol screenprint from 1987. Bednarsh made the purchase for $6,000 in February 2021.
“Bednarsh allegedly asked a co-conspirator, Brian Alec Light, 58, of Hudson, Ohio, and formerly a resident of downtown Los Angeles, to help him sell the stolen Warhol Lenin trial proof,” stated the press release from the US Attorney’s Office. “Light then contacted the Beverly Hills of an auction house based in Dallas about selling the Warhol trial proof.”
According to Light’s 25-page plea agreement, Bednarsh transported the Warhol trial proof to the Beverly Hills office of Heritage Auctions, which then shipped the artwork to Dallas for inspection and sale.
“Each one is unique, making them much more one-of-a-kind and valued by collectors,” Phil Selway, a gallerist who serves as CEO of Hamilton Selway gallery in West Hollywood, previously told ARTnews. The edition that was stolen was number 44 out of 46 and has an estimated value of $175,000.
According to court documents, Heritage Auctions contacted Hamilton Selway for its opinion of the trial proof. Selway immediately identified it as stolen, notifying Heritage Auctions and the FBI. (Heritage Auctions was not identified in court documents, only referred to as “H.A.,” but a spokesperson from the auction house previously told ARTnews, “As soon as Heritage discovered the Warhol was stolen, we immediately worked with the FBI to secure its return.”)
When FBI agents asked Light about the stolen Warhol trial proof in March 2021, Light said he bought it at a garage sale in Culver City for $18,000 and gave a fake receipt.
Then, in August and September of that year, Bednarsh allegedly lied to FBI agents “by telling them Light asked him to store the Warhol Lenin trial proof for him and that he agreed to do so out of friendship and not for financial gain.”
Last November, Light pled guilty to one count of interstate transportation of stolen goods, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Light’s sentencing is currently scheduled for May 27.
The press release from the US Attorney’s Office also noted that the FBI’s Art Crime Team was investigating this case.
The details of Light’s plea agreement were first reported by Courthouse News.
Serop Simonian, the alleged leader of an Egyptian antiquities trafficking ring, mysteriously left Paris for Hamburg during his jail sentence in January.
The now 83-year-old dealer is believed to be behind the sale of allegedly smuggled Egyptian antiquities to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre Abu Dhabi for a collective €60 million ($64 million).
In 2022, following a criminal investigation, several objects were seized including a gold sarcophagus and five other antiquities from the Met, as well as the indictment of seven dealers, collectors, and curators such as the former president of the Musée du Louvre Jean-Luc Martinez.
French authorities issued a warrant for Simonian’s arrest, which prompted the criminal investigation. He was charged with trafficking and laundering in September 2023 and was subsequently jailed in Paris.
Simonian’s lawyer Chloé Arnoux told the Art Newspaper that he “suffers from health problems and needs the assistance of a walker, was authorised to leave Paris by a magistrate on 31 December, to go back to his hometown. After 15 months of detention, the magistrate considered that he could be released.”
She added, “Simonian was then placed under European judicial control and must check in every month at a local police station. He was authorised to go back to Hamburg, where he is in an assisted living facility near his family. But the French prosecutor appealed the decision and it was overturned two weeks later by the court of appeal.”
The court’s ruling, however, states “the risk of flight is significant as Simonian handles a network and funds which would allow him to flee”, Libération reported.
Simonian has not responded to French summons to return to jail in Paris, legal sources say. It remains unclear how authorities will proceed.
A painting that for short while was referred to as a lost Caravaggio is now at the center of a major fraud investigation in Spain.
The artwork, Ecce Homo with Two Executioners, was sold by Herennia Trillo, a Spanish art dealer, for nearly $300,000 in early 2023. But, according to the Spanish new outlet El Confidencial, experts from Madrid’s Prado Museum studied the work and quickly stripped the picture of its illustrious attribution.
The case is reported to have involved forged documents, a supposed Uffizi expert, and a gallerist accused of helping launder the proceeds. Spanish authorities are now investigating Trillo. She may have collaborated with Sara Muñoz, who allegedly posed as a Caravaggio expert from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and Madrid dealer David Badía, who is suspected of issuing false invoices to obscure Trillo’s gains.
El Confidencial broke the story on Thursday. On X, the publication posted a picture of the Ecce Homo with Two Executioners, featuring a grim-looking, sallow-faced man who appears to be wearing a thorny crown and holding a thin piece of wood, alongside a headshot of Trillo.
Purchased in December 2022 for just €16,939, the painting was resold in February 2023 for €275,000 ($297,000). The buyer was led to believe they were securing a long-lost work by the Italian Baroque master, but when independent verification was requested, Trillo refused. Instead, she dangled alternative attributions, including to the French Caravaggisti painter Valentin de Boulogne.
By summer 2023, Prado experts were on the case. They found that the painting belonged to the broader Italian Baroque tradition but had nothing to do with Caravaggio. Instead, they attributed it to an anonymous artist from the school of Annibale Carracci—Caravaggio’s stylistic rival, known for a more idealized approach to painting. With that, the work’s estimated value plummeted from nearly $300,000 to a mere $22,000.
According to El Confidencial, Trillo pressured the buyer into making a hasty purchase, claiming other investors were circling. Once the money changed hands, she allegedly refused further authentication and later attempted to send the painting to herself in Switzerland rather than hand it over to the defrauded buyer. That move prompted a formal complaint, leading the Spanish Civil Guard to raid Trillo’s home last June and seize the painting. Trillo has since denied any wrongdoing.
Authenticated Caravaggios tend to sell for far greater sums. Just last year, another Ecce Homo—which the Prado helped authenticate as a genuine Caravaggio—sold for $39 million, a meteoric rise from its initial auction estimate of $1,780.