FG-001 · 1945
Art forgery · Amsterdam
Han van Meegeren — the forger who out-painted Vermeer to escape a traitor’s death
His own 1945 confession, proven by a supervised forgery · Convicted
FG-002 · 2011
Art forgery · Cologne
Wolfgang Beltracchi — the forger undone by one tube of pre-mixed paint
A 2008–10 pigment analysis finding anachronistic titanium white · Convicted
FG-003 · 1968
Art forgery · Ibiza
Elmyr de Hory — the forger too prolific to convict
The 1967 Meadows scandal and Clifford Irving's 1969 Fake! · Exposed
FG-004 · 2007
Art forgery · Bolton
Shaun Greenhalgh — the garden-shed forger who fooled the British Museum
A cuneiform error on faked Assyrian reliefs, spotted by the British Museum in 2005 · Convicted
FG-005 · 1976
Art forgery · London
Tom Keating — the restorer who salted his fakes with deliberate self-destruct clues
Geraldine Norman's 1976 Times investigation, then his own confession · Exposed
FG-006 · 1999
Art forgery · London
John Myatt & John Drewe — the forgers who faked the archive, not just the art
Mary Lisa Palmer's doubts and a tip from Drewe's ex-partner to Scotland Yard · Convicted
FG-007 · 1984
Konrad Oberhuber's 1978 paper match; public from 1984; his own confession · Exposed
FG-008 · 2010
Art forgery · Laurel, Mississippi
Mark Landis — the forger who gave his fakes away and so was never charged
Registrar Matthew Leininger; The Art Newspaper, Nov 2010 · Exposed
FG-009 · 1983
Document forgery · Hamburg
The Hitler Diaries — 62 forged volumes undone in two weeks by modern paper
German federal archive forensics, May 1983; trial 1984–85 · Debunked
FG-010 · 2021
Cartographic forgery · New Haven
The Vinland Map — a “pre-Columbian” map undone by 20th-century ink
Anatase ink (McCrone 1974); Yale's XRF study and 2021 declaration · Debunked
FG-011 · 2018
Antiquities forgery · Malibu
The Getty Kouros — the multimillion-dollar statue no one can prove is real or fake
Forged provenance + reproducible fake patina; never settled · Disputed
FG-012 · 1961
Antiquities forgery · New York
The Met’s Etruscan Warriors — three giant fakes the museum displayed for decades
Manganese in the glaze + Fioravanti's 1961 confession · Debunked
FG-013 · 1930
Manuscript forgery · Paris
The Spanish Forger — a faker so prolific his fakes became collectible
Belle da Costa Greene's 1930 identification; modern pigments · Exposed
FG-014 · 1977
Historical hoax · San Francisco Bay
The Drake Plate of Brass — a club’s private joke that a famous historian mistook for treasure
1977 Berkeley Lab neutron activation analysis · Debunked
FG-015 · 1952
Art forgery · Lübeck
Lothar Malskat — the restorer who painted his own “medieval” frescoes, turkeys and all
His own 1952 confession to police · Confessed