Italian police raid Dali exhibition, say works on display were fake

ROME (Reuters) -Italy’s art heritage police said on Wednesday they raided a Salvador Dali exhibition and seized 21 works attributed to the famous Spanish surrealist painter that are presumed to be forgeries.

Officers took tapestries, drawings, engravings and various objects from the “Salvador Dali: Between art and Myth” show which opened last week in the northern city of Parma, the Carabinieri said in a statement.

Palazzo Tarasconi, the venue hosting the Parma exhibition, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The ticketing office said the exhibition would continue despite the seizures.

Police said they acted on suspicions first raised by the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation – the body tasked with protecting the artist’s legacy – and spotted “anomalies” while the artworks were on display in Rome.

The exhibition, comprising around 80 artworks, ran in the Italian capital from January to July. It reopened in Parma on September 27, and was scheduled to continue until February 1.

The Carabinieri stressed that the artworks were presumed fake on the basis of preliminary investigations, and that the presumption of innocence would apply until a final verdict is reached.

Italy’s Carabinieri police has specialised units working on stolen or forged art.

They said last year they had uncovered a large-scale pan-European forgery network making and selling fakes attributed to some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art including Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Dali.

(Reporting by Alvise Armellini, editing by Ed Osmond)