Even in this current age of celebrity chefs, no one has thought to impersonate a foreign Rajah in order to attract publicity for his restaurant, like "Prince Ranjit" did a century ago.
Wouldn't so many, many contemporary controversies be definitively settled if only we had Jesus's own writings about his life? Doesn't the sorry world of the 21st century need his inspired insights, straight from the Savior's lips? Of course! And yet, this Spiritualist-dictated "autobiography" languishes unread!
Dresden art dealer Petra Kujau was found guilty of forgery this week, after passing off three hundred paintings she had come into possession of as the work of her "great-uncle", Konrad Kujau. The 51 year-old singer turned dealer would add a facsimile of Kujau senior's signature to the paintings, then sell them on at a greatly inflated price.
So far, so mundane. What makes this story particularly WU worthy is that Konrad Kujau was himself a forger, and his self-proclaimed niece was selling her forgeries as "genuine forgeries" created by her famous uncle Konrad. It all begins to make sense once you learn that Mr. Kujau did not limit himself to forging paintings, but was also known to forge the odd diary or two, specifically those of one Adolf Hitler. Although ultimately unsuccessful, his forgeries of the Hitler Diaries were good enough to fool not just many newspapers and magazines, but also at least two historians, and the unmasking of the hoax caused many a journalist and editor a red face. But the notoriety afforded Konrad Kujau as the man "behind" the Hitler diaries meant that he could command considerable sums for something a small as Hitler's signature on a card, and original "Kujau forgeries" soon became enough of a collector's item that he could make a comfortable living from them after his release from prison in 1987.
After his death in September 2000 his business was carried on by Petra Kujau, who evidently decided that one forgery was as good as another, and began importing cheap copies of famous works from Asian suppliers and passing them off as eminently more desirable "Kujau forgeries", which in one sense they were. But soon the sheer volume of Kujau forgeries on the market aroused the suspicions of at least one collector, who tipped off the police to the double forgery.
Which just leaves the question, just where can I get hold of a genuine Petra Kujau double forgery? Now that's something I'd like to own!
"The now-infamous 'cup and sea' sequence from director Turge Babonet's 1968 film, THE HORRIBLE HORROR -- which prompted writer Cleveland Amory (TV Guide. May 12, 1968) to comment on the state of European cinema, 'You have to be on LSD to understand it'. Babonet's Dutch-language drama was ambitiously rescored and subtitled for US distribution, but its story of tragically depressed cod fishermen held no appeal for American audiences."
Category: Eccentrics, Food, Hoaxes and Imposters and Imitators, Restaurants, 1900's, India