41 fake works by Warhol, Sorolla and Dalí that were to be auctioned in Valencia were seized.

The National Police have seized 41 fake works by Andy Warhol, Joaquín Sorolla, Salvador Dalí, Federico de Madrazo and Ignacio Zuloaga, among others, which were to be auctioned in Valencia with a combined starting price of more than 1.2 million euros .

The pieces are part of the private collection of the same owner, who was trying to sell them at an auction house in Valencia, according to the investigation carried out by the Police Historical Heritage Group .

The largest number of forgeries seized belong to works by Andy Warhol, with 14 pieces valued at nearly €893,000, including a portrait of Mao Zedong with a starting price of €500,000.

Among the confiscated forgeries are also paintings that copy works by Antonio Saura, Joaquín Agrasot, Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa, Manuel Viola, Antonio Clavé, Antonio Gisbert and Manuel Hernández-Mompó.

All the pieces were signed and belonged to the same owner , who claimed to have acquired them as originals four or five decades earlier from different individuals or gallery owners. The owner was questioned as a suspect in the crimes of fraud and intellectual property infringement, but has not been arrested.

The intervention is the result of investigations that began in September 2024 and has led to the discovery of eight fake panels and one canvas by Sorolla, three fake works by Salvador Dalí, and 14 by Andy Warhol, as well as a fake painting by Madrazo, another by Zuloaga, and one by Saura. Three other paintings were attributed to Viola, three to Anglada Camarasa, two to Agrasot, two to Antonio Gisbert, and one to Antonio Clavé.

All the works were deposited in an auction room in Valencia for sale for a total starting price of 1,262,950 euros .

In addition to a fake copy of Andy Warhol's portrait of Mao Zedong with a starting price of 500,000 euros, other works by the same New York artist were trying to be sold at auction for 140,000, 70,000 or 20,000 euros, and copied iconic works of 'pop art' such as portraits of Marilyn Monroe and John Fitzgerald Kennedy .

Sorolla 's works, meanwhile, were to be auctioned with starting prices ranging from €78,000 to €2,000, while Dalí 's ranged from €35,000 to €8,000.

Most of the intervened works copy the artists' originals, while others imitate their style without achieving their artistic quality. All have imitated the artists' signatures, and some are accompanied by a supposed certificate of authenticity.

The police have determined and certified that all cases are forgeries , following physical and stylistic analysis carried out by specialists on the works of the copied authors.

Among other individuals and institutions, the research consulted Blanca Pons-Sorolla, the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, the Antonio Saura Foundation, the Zuloaga Foundation, the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, and the Gravina Museum of Fine Arts in Alicante. The Historical Heritage Group of the Barcelona Judicial Police Brigade also collaborated in the analysis of the three works by Salvador Dalí.

The National Police have seized 41 fake works by Andy Warhol, Joaquín Sorolla, Salvador Dalí, Federico de Madrazo and Ignacio Zuloaga, among others, which were to be auctioned in Valencia with a combined starting price of more than 1.2 million euros .