"That painting, according to reports and experts, is not a Valentin de Boulogne and I have never been the owner": says the undersecretary of Culture, Vittorio Sgarbi, who announces a "5 million euro civil action against the authors of the fake investigation and Rai" which yesterday evening on Report broadcast a report in which it is claimed that the art critic purchased the painting from a person in disadvantaged conditions and that he exported it "illicitly" to abroad.
The historian and critic makes it known that he intends to sue, with a request for damages of 5 million euros, the Rai Report broadcast and the authors "of the fake investigation, Thomas Mackinson and Manuele Bonaccorsi, for the repeated work of defamation" in his comparisons, based, adds Sgarbi, "on false hypotheses relating to the value of the painting".
"No critic - claims Sgarbi - has ever published it or attributed it to the Frenchman Valentin de Boulogne. The series of lies and baseless fiction, also contrasted by the auction results for similar paintings and in the evaluations of the Zeri photo library, continued in the episode on Sunday 28 January with other unfounded reconstructions, seriously damaging to my image and against the truth of the facts. The broadcast, once again, with a narrative of the facts built on false assumptions, accuses me of having illicitly exported the work abroad The only ascertained value for the painting is lower than that for which the crime of illicit export is foreseen. I have never, based on the evidence of the testimonies collected, ever had ownership of that painting, unanimously believed not to be by Valentin de Boulogne ".
As for the price that Sgarbi allegedly paid to the owner of the painting, 10 thousand euros, "I never met the seller of the painting, but I simply assessed the nature of a copy, ignoring that it belonged 'to people with material or physical hardships', an unacceptable insinuation , the latter, by Mr Ranucci, alongside an absolutely unfounded assessment".
"It is unthinkable - he concludes - that the public service acts with a process of systematic defamation with the sole intention of denigrating me, in ignorance of what we are talking about. The investigations into the painting exclude that it could belong to Valentin de Boulogne and indicate that the work on which the defamatory action was built may instead be an old canvas with a more recent painting. The finding of the sale at 10 thousand euros speaks for itself. The rest - he concludes - is the fantasy of ignorant and criminal minds ".
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