Police Arrest Man Asking $17 M. for Fake Study of van Gogh’s ‘The Harvest’

August 21, 2015 12:16pm

van Gogh's The Harvest (1888), which hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS — Van Gogh’s *The Harvest* (1888), which hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The BBC reported that Dutch police have apprehended a man accused of attempting to sell a fake study of van Gogh’s The Harvest (1888). The suspect’s identity has not been revealed due to Dutch privacy laws, but the police said today that he was asking €15 million (about $17 million) and had forged documents from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam certifying the work’s legitimacy.

Authorities said that buyers around the world had readily expressed interest in the work, since van Goghs are extremely expensive and rarely change ownership.