7 years later, where is the Terrus affair at the Elne museum?

Seven years after discovering that 80 of the 140 paintings by Etienne Terrus presented at the Elne museum were fakes, the case is still not resolved. The Catalan town hall now wishes to recover the forger’s works to use them differently.

This is a case that caused a lot of noise in the art world, when in 2018, France 3 Occitanie revealed that the Elne museum, dedicated to the work of Etienne Terrus, famous painter from Roussillon, was victim of trafficking in fake paintings. Fakes in particular spotted shortly before by Éric Forcada, art historian.

More than half of the museum’s collection is then concerned, i.e. 80 of the 140 paintings acquired by the municipality.

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Seven years later, after several twists and turns, the dispute is still not resolved. And nothing really seems to have changed.

Éric Forcada, the first to spot the deception, had to face death threats after the town hall filed a complaint.

We find ourselves faced with financial and institutional interests which have been hampered. Today, we have the validation of justice, we know that there was a crisis of false paintings.

Éric Forcada, art historian.

He still hopes that a judgment will one day be pronounced: “We need a judicial end point for this traffic“.

For its part, the town hall of Elne now wishes to recover the fake paintings seized, to put them to educational use, making them a “new exhibition with real specialists” who would know how to present defects, for example.

► Report by Meerajh Vinayagamoorthy and Philippe Georget.

The total damage from this case is now estimated at 160,000 euros. Three people have been indicted since the first revelations and complaints filed by the Elne museum and the municipality.