Paintings Made in Hours

A former art dealer is charged with forgery and grand larceny. Prosecutors say he mastered the styles of several living European painters and sold his own pictures, signed with their names, as their original works. One of the artists is said to have seen the pictures and reported them as fakes. The accused does not deny that he painted them. The question is whether selling them as the masters' work amounts to forgery and theft from the buyers.