Curator helps feds recover copy of 1939 Wyeth watercolor that artist IDed as a fake

Feds recover counterfeit copy of Wyeth watercolor

WILMINGTON, Del. — Federal authorities have recovered a counterfeit copy of a 1939 watercolor by artist Andrew Wyeth.

The painting is a copy of “Wreck at Doughnut Point.” It was recovered by the FBI after a California dealer who purchased it nine years ago for about $20,000 contacted a Texas auction house to sell it.

The auction house contacted the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pa. A curator there recognized it as a painting Wyeth had identified as fake in response to an inquiry from a Connecticut art dealer a decade earlier.

Wyeth was the son of famed painter and book illustrator N.C. Wyeth and father of painter Jamie Wyeth. He died in January at his Chadds Ford home at age 91.