A Roman Bachelor Pad for Bill Gates?

Valium, a four-by-four-foot Damien Hirst print, had been hanging in Ken Follett’s converted barn for two decades, minding its own business, until a friend of the best-selling author noticed a crease in the paper. That’s when the trouble started. After Valium was sent for re-framing, Follett was alerted to a discrepancy between the number on the print (188, out of an edition of 500) and the number listed in the Sotheby’s catalogue (88). Typo? Or something far more nefarious?

Follett has now been advised that the print, which he bought in 2004 for about $4,800 but is said to be worth more than $27,000 today, is a fake, and he “has threatened legal action against the auction house,” according to The Times of London. “However, Sotheby’s has rebutted the claims and insisted … that its ‘due diligence’ had established that the print was a genuine work produced by Hirst.” But Hirst’s own company concluded that “the design has all of the incorrect spots typically seen in fake editions,” a finding that Sotheby’s has characterized as “quite unsettling.” To be continued.