More than half the paintings owned by a southern French museum are worthless fakes, and authorities fear more forgeries¹ may be on display at other public galleries.

法国南部一家博物院里的超过半数的画作并非真迹，有关部门担心更多赝品正在其他的公共美术馆展出。

The small museum in Elne, dedicated² to local artist Etienne Terrus, a contemporary of Henri Matisse, learned that 82 of its 140 works are fakes after art historian Eric Forcadea raised the alarm.

这家位于埃尔恩的小型博物院专门展出和亨利·马蒂斯同期的当地艺术家艾迪恩·泰吕的作品。近日，在历史学家埃里克·福尔卡达提出质疑后，这家博物院才发现其140幅作品中的82幅为赝品。

Forcadea noticed while helping³ to prepare an exhibit that some of the paintings attributed to the Terrus featured buildings built after his 1922 death.

福尔卡达在帮助准备一个展览的过程中发现，一些所谓泰吕作品中出现的建筑的始建时间竟然是在1922年以后，而泰吕在1922年已去世。

The state-owned Terrus Museum had a committee of experts inspect the works and concluded that many were not been painted by the Elne-born artist.

这家国立的泰吕博物馆，随后组织了一个专家委员会来检查这些作品，最后证实许多作品并不是由这位在埃尔恩出生的艺术家创作的。

Roughly $170,000 was paid for the phony oil paintings, watercolors and drawings over the past few decades.

在过去的几十年里，大约共有17万美元的资金花在了这些伪造的油画、水彩画和绘画上面。

"It's a catastrophe," Yves Barniol, the mayor of Elne told The Telegrah. "I put myself in the place of all the people who came to visit the museum, who saw fake works of art, who paid an entrance fee. It's intolerable and I hope we find those responsible."

埃尔恩市的市长伊夫·巴尼尔向《电讯报》透露：“这是一场大灾难。我站在进馆参观的所有人的角度上思考，他们看到了伪造的艺术品，却支付了入馆费。这是无法容忍的，我希望我们能找到那些应负责任的人。”

Barriol said the city recently invested $365,000 refurbishing the museum. "We will continue to promote local art."

巴尼尔表示，这座城市最近投资了36.5万美元来翻修这座博物馆。“我们会继续推广当地的艺术。”