Jos Pauwels, the painter who does not exist: how the world’s largest auction houses deceive collectors with fake art | Domestic

In 2020, Jos Mestdach (73), an art lover from Moregem, bought a painting in a Ghent auction house. There is soon great uncertainty about the painter, a certain Jos Pauwels. For three years, the former journalist stalked the world’s largest auction houses, which turned out to be trading Jos Pauwelsen for many thousands of pounds and dollars. Are they knowingly selling fake art, brushed off by zealous copyists in China?