Van Gogh painting discovered by tax inspectors revealed as fake

A VINCENT Van Gogh painting discovered by Spanish tax inspectors has turned out to be a ‘terrible fake’.

Cypress, Sky and Country, which allegedly disappeared while on display Vienna’s Art History Museum in the early 1970s, was found in a deposit box in a bank.

But now the vice-director of Vienna’s Belvedere, Alfred Weidinger, has confirmed it is the work of an amateur, and that the original hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum.

“It is one of the worst fakes or, better yet, copies, that I have ever seen,” he told Austrian daily Die Presse.

“An amateur must have done it based on a calendar shot of the original.”

The painting, measuring 35 by 32 cm, was painted in 1889.

Spanish daily El Mundo originally broke the story, claiming two experts had confirmed its authenticity, based on three seals of proof.

However, Weidinger argued the seals are merely more obvious proof that it is a fake.