Lawsuit Over Faked Frans Hals Painting Snares Seattle Developer

SEATTLE, WA - One of Seattle's biggest hotel developers is caught up in a lawsuit over a fake painting attributed to Dutch Old Master Frans Hals. Richard C. Hedreen bought the fake Hals "Portrait of a Man" in 2011 for over $10 million.

The auction house Sotheby's is suing a company called Fairlight Art Ventures to recover money it paid for the fake. Sotheby's refunded Hedreen in 2016 when the facsimile was discovered. According to federal court records, Fairlight has requested to depose Hedreen in the matter. The lawsuit is being heard in High Court of Justice in England.

In its defense, Fairlight is trying to show that many art scholars thought the fake Hals was real, including the chief curator of the Frans Hals Museum in the Netherlands. But in October 2016, Sotheby's said that the painting had traces of 20th-century materials.

If the painting is a fake, it's unclear who did it, according to the New York Times. "Portrait of a Man" was previously unknown in the art world when it surfaced in 2008, according to the Times, adding to questions of its authenticity. An art collector named Giuliano Ruffini bought the painting that year from a Spanish art dealer. The Louvre was initially interested in buying the Hals, but never did. In the meantime, the auction house Christie's, acting as Ruffini's broker, began to express doubts about the painting.

The Hals was eventually sold to a collector named Mark Weiss for $3 million, and was then sold through Sotheby's to Hedreen's company EPC Nevada, according to the Times.

Hedreen has developed numerous Seattle hotels, including the Olive 8, the Grand Hyatt, and the soon-to-open Hyatt Regency, Seattle's largest hotel. In 2009, Hedreen was named one of the top 200 art collectors in the world by Art News.

A federal judge in Seattle will decide whether Hedreen can be questioned in the Hals lawsuit. As of Wednesday, the judge had not made that order, according to court records.

Caption: The Dutch portrait and genre painter, Frans Hals, (c1580 - 1666), born in Mechlin. A self-portrait, in the collection of the Earl Radnor, Longford Castle.

Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images