Art historian says Tate's £15m Gauguin may be fake

Three Tahitians, 1899. Photo / Getty Images

First he came for the Getty museum, lopping several million dollars of the value of its collection by identifying a fake Gauguin.Now Fabrice Fourmanoir, a French art historian, has his sights set on one of the artist's paintings hanging at Tate Britain.

Mr Fourmanoir claims the origins of Tahitians, by the celebrated post-Impressionist artist, are deeply dubious. The unfinished oil on paper shows natives on the island the self-exiled Frenchman chose as his home and inspiration.It is estimated to be worth around $30 million (£15 million), but would be rendered worthless if Fourmanoir's hunch is proved correct.

He told The Sunday Telegraph that Tahitians was not in the drawing style of Gauguin, and lacked his distinctive perspective. He also had doubts over gaps in the artwork's recorded history, and said an unfinished oil painting like this was an "easy way to frame up a fake".

The Tate has been contacted directly by Fourmanoir, but the institution said it had not had time to fully consider the claims but it is understood tests to establish the true provenance of the contested artwork are not planned.

These would help establish whether pigments in the oils are from the late 19th century, or if they were put there later by an artist with access to a wider palette. Last year the art historian correctly questioned the 19th century sculpture Head With Horns, displayed at the Getty as a "superb example" of Gauguin's work and valued at several million dollars. It turned out to be fake.

The painting at the Tate is not hanging in the public galleries, but is thought to be extremely valuable. However, it lacks a signature and its subject matter does not fully chime with the usual work of Vincent van Gogh's former friend and housemate.

It also uses techniques unfamiliar to the artist and Fourmanoir believes it could have been made by a later arrival to Tahiti hoping to cash in on the reputation of Gauguin, who died in 1903 in French Polynesia. While no tests are currently planned to authenticate the work, the Tate is interested in the claims made by Fourmanoir.

In a statement, the gallery said: "We welcome new research into the collection. Fourmanoir has been in touch with us about this but we have not yet had the opportunity to consider his research in full."

The Getty sculpture was long thought to be exceedingly rare, and has been on public display at the Tate Modern, in 2010.

The museum bought the sculpture in 2002 for an undisclosed sum believed to be in excess of £2.3 million, the highest ever for a sculpture by Gauguin. The sale raised eyebrows after it was suggested that the vendor was the same organisation as the one that had given the stamp of approval on the artwork's provenance.

After more than a decade of internal research by the Getty, however, it was quietly removed from display last month.The institution now attributes the work to "Unknown".

Head with Horns will remain in storage at the Getty while research continues into how the work was made, and by whom.

The value of the work, without the attribution to Gauguin, is now likely to be a fraction of the sum Getty paid.

Gauguin lived on the French colonial island of Tahiti for two spells in the 1890s, before his death aged 54 on the nearby Marquesas Islands in 1903.