The Art Forger

The Art Forger (2012), a mystery novel by B.A. Shapiro, takes inspiration from the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, in which thieves posing as police officers infiltrated a museum, tied up the guards, and then proceeded to steal an estimated $500 million in art. This was the largest-value theft of private property in recorded history; as of the time Shapiro wrote her novel, none of the art pieces had been recovered and no arrests had been made.

Shapiro uses this framework to explore the art world and to make a compelling case that art is for everyone to enjoy, its primary value being its beauty rather than the monetary value assigned to it.

Claire Roth is a talented artist who makes her living producing reproductions of famous paintings. She is also hard at work on a series of original paintings that she hopes to use to break out of her job making art copies. Many members of the art world look down on Claire because she paints reproductions, but she still manages to arrange for the famous art dealer Aiden Markel to come to one of her showings. Aiden is impressed by her work, and, having heard of her day job, offers Claire a large sum of money to reproduce a famous painting by Degas, which was stolen in the Gardner Museum heist.



Claire strongly considers Aiden’s offer. She knows that it is not illegal to copy a piece of art, only to sell that piece while presenting it as an original. Further influencing her decision is an experience with Isaac, a former boyfriend who signed his name to one of Claire’s paintings and recently sold the work for a large sum of money. Convinced that art forgers are not doing anything illegal and that it is sellers of forged paintings who are in the wrong, she strongly considers reproducing the Degas.

She is further convinced the next day while teaching her regular painting class for underprivileged youths. Her students do not have the supplies they need because the state only allocates limited funds to the class. Later, Aiden tells her that millions of people who might otherwise not have access to the Degas will be able to see it because of the forgery. Convinced that creating the painting can potentially help many people, Claire agrees to Aiden’s proposition.

Aiden delivers the painting to Claire’s studio. Once there, he explains that he does not know where the other works that were stolen from the Gardner Museum are, but through clandestine meetings with other dealers, he has come into possession of the Degas. He wants the work copied so that he can return the original to the museum where it belongs. Otherwise, it will be kept underground where it cannot be appreciated.



Claire studies the painting in her studio and begins to fall in love with it. She also goes to a museum to view other works by Degas and tries to find information about the models in the painting. However, the more research she does, the more convinced she becomes that the Degas in her studio is actually another clever forgery. This is confirmed when she studies the brushstrokes and determines that the painting was made by a left-handed artist, while Degas was right-handed. She believes that this was the painting that had hung in the Gardner Museum, that it was a forgery when the Gardner acquired it, and that she is the first person to discover this. She opts not to tell Aiden what she has discovered since it will ruin her chance of having her own show and breaking out as an artist in her own right.

Throwing herself into the creation of the forgery, Claire completes the painting while growing closer to Aiden. When the work is done, he arranges for it to be transported. One night, while staying over at Claire’s house, Aiden learns that the painting has been recovered during a security sweep of a ship bound for India. He reassures Claire that the forgery cannot be traced back to her; they soon hear that Claire’s forgery has been deemed the original work.

Claire begins to work on original paintings for the show that Aiden has promised her. However, she soon learns that Aiden has been arrested for his connection to the stolen Degas. Claire visits him in jail where he reveals that he still owes art brokers money for the stolen paintings, and they have threatened to use him to steal more artworks if they are not compensated. Claire realizes that the only way to save Aiden and the other artworks is to come clean about her forgery.



She confesses to the police, who get professionals to analyze her paintings as well as her painting style. They are impressed by her skill and, ultimately, convinced that she is the forger. Despite the negative publicity, Claire’s first gallery show is a hit, and she is soon on her way to becoming the artist she always hoped to be.

In addition to telling a mystery about art theft, The Art Forger also contains a large amount of information on the nature of art, creating paintings, and the value of museums. It makes a strong case that art betters the world, but it can only do its job if people have access to it and works of art are not hoarded in private collections.