There is report in a couple of the newspapers about a so-called Jesuit priest who for the past twenty years or so has been donating valuable works of art to museums across the United States. The only problem is that they are all clever forgeries.
The man makes the ‘donations’ of works by Curren, Picasso, Signac and Daumier in memory of his late mother and does not ask for any payment, though he occasionally attends special ‘donor events’ that the museums organise.
How interesting is this report which will exercise the minds of a number of legal experts in the months to come? What crime has been committed in circumstances where no money or reward has changed hands? Is he a priest or not? If not he may be accused of fraudulently posing as a priest, and if he is a priest, then he will have to answer to the church authorities for what he has been up to. But is a crime committed when someone donates a forgery to a museum in circumstances where that body has the ability to check the veracity of the artwork involved?
Somehow, I think not.
.
The man makes the ‘donations’ of works by Curren, Picasso, Signac and Daumier in memory of his late mother and does not ask for any payment, though he occasionally attends special ‘donor events’ that the museums organise.
How interesting is this report which will exercise the minds of a number of legal experts in the months to come? What crime has been committed in circumstances where no money or reward has changed hands? Is he a priest or not? If not he may be accused of fraudulently posing as a priest, and if he is a priest, then he will have to answer to the church authorities for what he has been up to. But is a crime committed when someone donates a forgery to a museum in circumstances where that body has the ability to check the veracity of the artwork involved?
Somehow, I think not.
.
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