It is not because of the perspective, it is not because of the definition or power of its characters or because of the chromatic dominance.. It is not because of the finishes, because of the technique, but there is something in the works of Jos Pauwels that attracts attention. There is something that attracts the public and buyers, something that pushes dealers to ask for thousands of euros for their works and auction houses to look for their work.. He is not one of the most famous artists, he is not one of the most coveted, but he is not unknown either.. The problem is that Pauwels does not exist, has never existed, and no one in Belgium knows who is behind his canvases.

It is not a brilliant marketing operation, but everything points to a huge fraud. Very respected firms such as Dorotheum in Vienna and Christie's and Sotheby's in London and New York have placed his works in the past. And last week, the Vanderkindere house hosted an auction of antiques, including a work by the mysterious artist, but withdrew it at the last minute thanks to the efforts of Jos Mestdach, an Ardennes-based art lover and former journalist. in some of the best-known flamenco newspapers.

In 2020, Mestdach bought the good-sized painting for 1,000 euros. It was a pointillist work by a certain Jos Pauwels, which had already been sold previously by the Brussels house Horta, without pain or glory.

Mestdach acquired them for purely aesthetic reasons.. He thought it was pretty, it had an affordable price and it generated a lot of curiosity in him, since he had not heard of the artist with such a unique surname.. Didn't find anything. He searched, kept searching and realized that he was facing one scam, one deception or one mistake after another; and wrote a book, Fake Art, published a few weeks ago.

After three years, and countless consultations with all kinds of experts, the general consensus is that they are works of little talent. Resulting, but without a refined technique. “The tables are not straight, the arms are too short. The compositions don't hold up,” Mestdach explained to VRT News. The fun of it all is in the deliberate confusion. The author uses a pointillist technique replicating the masters of more than a century ago, which has served to cajole. Furthermore, the signature does not seem innocent. There is a Joseph Pauwels (1818-1876) in Belgian artistic history, but he was already dead by the time Georges Seurat (1859-1891) and others shaped the style in the 1880s.

And there is also a Henri Joseph Pauwels (1903-1983), much better known, especially in the Waasland region, since there is practically no house that does not have one of his works.. But there is no trace of José. In the last three years, Mestdach and the Police have located more than 300 works, often distributed with the complicit silence of experts aware of the deception. Mestdach, who ends his investigation, and who at least continues to find his painting beautiful, has no proof, but neither does he have much doubt that the mysterious author is one of the many anonymous people who work in some of the massive workshops in “the Dafen Village, located on the outskirts of Shenzhen, China, where ancient paintings are copied and distributed. Soulless, but cute.