Sonia DELAUNAY
1885–1979, Ukraine/France

Oil painting on panel, composition, signed "Sonia Delaunay", size 45x22,5 cm. The painting was for sale at a small auction house in Stockholm, Sweden in autumn 2013. The painting was submitted to the sale of a man living in Gothenburg. He used his wife as a decoy when he himself was expelled from the auction house because he had previously submitted paintings that proved to be forgeries. In police questioning, he stated that he bought this painting for about 3500 SEK from an auction house in the US during the 1990s, but he lacks receipts from this purchase.

Pastel, composition, signed "Sonia Delaunay", size 35x25 cm. The painting was sold through an online auction house in Stockholm Sweden for 10,000 SEK (about 1,100 euros), estimated price was 12.000 SEK. The buyer contacted an expert to get the painting examined. It turned out that the expert assessed the painting as a forgery. The auction house withdrew the painting and repaid the purchase price to the buyer. Police contacted the submitter and started an investigation of the painting, which also showed that it was a forgery.