{"id":167410,"date":"2025-09-29T05:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T05:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/167410\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T05:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T05:12:09","slug":"fiat-family-fake-paintings-allegations-under-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/167410\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiat family \u2018fake paintings\u2019 allegations under investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian prosecutors are investigating claims that members of the Agnelli family arranged for works by Monet and de Chirico to be replaced with \u00adforgeries in their villas during an inheritance dispute.<\/p>\n

Gianni Agnelli, the late patriarch of the family long known as the \u201cItalian Kennedys\u201d, turned Fiat into a global powerhouse and presided over an empire that also included Ferrari and \u00adJuventus. He also expanded the family art collection that included more than 600 works by artists such as Modigliani, Renoir and Matisse.<\/p>\n

After Gianni\u2019s death in 2003 and that of his wife, Marella, in 2019, his legacy became embroiled in a dispute. Their daughter, Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen, claims her children from her first marriage<\/a> \u2014 John, Lapo and Gin\u00adevra Elkann \u2014 cheated her out of her share of the fortune, including works that she says were assigned to her under a 2004 agreement with Marella.<\/p>\n

An investigation focuses on 13 missing works listed in the accord, including Francis Bacon\u2019s Study for a Pope, \u00adPicasso engravings titled Torse de femme and John Singer Sargent\u2019s A Street in Algiers, which de Pahlen claims have gone missing.<\/p>\n

\"Giovanni<\/p>\n

Gianni Agnelli and his wife, Marella, in 1986<\/p>\n

LAURENT SOLA\/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

A former staff member at the Ag\u00adnellis\u2019 Rome residence told carabinieri that paintings were removed in 2008 when Marella fell ill. Another worker at the residence reported that a painting by Giacomo Balla had been replaced with \u201cone of inferior quality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shippers told investigators they had been asked to transport copies from the Rome property between 2016 and 2018.<\/p>\n

Gigi Moncalvo, an author who has written about the Agnelli family, said cleaners and other staff who had worked at the Agnelli homes had punished John Elkann<\/a>, the present head of the Agnellis\u2019 Stellantis automotive group. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were very angry with him,\u201d Moncalvo told The Times. \u201cAfter sacking them, when his grandmother was no longer around to be looked after, he threw them out rather than hiring them at Stellantis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year copies of three missing works \u2014 Balla\u2019s The Stairway of Farewells (1908), de Chirico\u2019s Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914), and \u00adMonet\u2019s Gla\u00e7ons, effet blanc (Ice floes, white effect) \u2014 were found in a vault at Fiat\u2019s former Lingotto plant in Turin after de Pahlen reported them missing.<\/p>\n

The Balla and de Chirico copies had previously hung at the Agnelli \u00adresidence in Rome, while the Monet had been displayed at their Villa \u00adFrescot in Turin. The original works are missing.<\/p>\n

The 2004 accord valued the collection at levels some say were deliberately deflated. The assessment put the value of Monet\u2019s Gla\u00e7ons, effet blanc at \u20ac4 million but Sotheby\u2019s later valued it at \u20ac17.5 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe values were kept low so Marella could pay as little tax as possible,\u201d Moncalvo said. Investigators are trying to establish whether the Agnellis may have unknowingly hung copies of the paintings on their walls and who ordered their removal. One theory is that originals were moved abroad, a transfer that would have required permission from the Italian culture ministry.<\/p>\n

This month he agreed to perform community service and pay \u00ad\u20ac183 million<\/a> to settle a case over unpaid inheritance tax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italian prosecutors are investigating claims that members of the Agnelli family arranged for works by Monet and de…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-167410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}