LA Dealer Admits to Selling Fake Picasso

The Wall Street Journal has a short article on a Los Angeles art dealer who had a fake copy of Picasso's Woman in a Blue Hat made (see image), and latter sold with a false provenance that it came from the late Malcolm Forbes collection.  The dealer sold the fake Picasso for $2 million. The purchaser eventually grew suspicious and had the painting authenticated, then notified the FBI.

The WSJ article is short, so I will post in its entirety.

A West Hollywood art dealer pleaded guilty today to selling a fake Pablo Picasso drawing of a woman in a blue hat for $2 million, according to the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles.

An anonymous buyer of the fake drawing grew suspicious about the work's authenticity two years ago and reached out to a Picasso expert, who later contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Ms. Khan told the FBI she had acquired the drawing of a prim woman wearing an indigo-plumed hat from an acquaintance, according to her plea agreement. She later confessed to the FBI that she had asked the restorer to lie about copying the work. (The original work belongs to a private collector, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ranee Katzenstein.)

Ms. Khan, 70 years old, will appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles early next month to enter a guilty plea on two felony counts: making false statements to the FBI and witness tampering. As part of her plea deal, she has agreed to pay back the $2 million and give up a Willem de Kooning abstract work she bought with a portion of the sale proceeds. She faces a federal prison sentence of anywhere from 21 months to 25 years.

Ms. Kahn's attorney, James W. Spertus, said that his client has had a 45-year career as an art dealer and hopes to continue her profession after "accepting responsibility for making a false statement to the FBI."