And now the real fake news...
Trump boasts he has a priceless Renoir on his wall. Er, so what’s that in Chicago gallery?
HE likes to accuse any media outlet that disagrees with him of peddling fake news. But in at least one instance, it seems, Donald Trump is proud to be associated with something phoney.
He is said to boast that an oil painting hanging in his apartment in Trump Tower in New York is a priceless Renoir – even though he has been told it is a fake.
The President reportedly insists that his version of the 1881 oil-on-canvas impressionist masterpiece Two Sisters, also known as On The Terrace, is genuine.
However, the Art Institute of Chicago says it has owned the original since 1933.
Mr Trump has found himself at the centre of a second fakery row, concerning his wife Melania – amid conspiracy theories that the First Lady uses a look-alike to stand in for her at some public appearances.
Claims about the Renoir surfaced this week. Mr Trump’s biographer Tim O’Brien told Vanity Fair he challenged the property mogul- turned- president
‘He believes his own lies, they last for decades’
more than a decade ago, when the painting hung inside the billionaire’s private jet. He pointed out the authentic painting was at the Art Institute.
But Mr Trump told him: ‘You know, that’s an original Renoir.’ The painting is visible on the wall of Mr Trump’s apartment during TV interviews, including one with Mrs Trump.
‘I’m sure he’s still telling people who come into the apartment, “It’s an original, it’s an original”,’ Mr O’Brien told Vanity Fair.
‘He believes his own lies in a way that lasts for decades. He’ll tell the same stories time and time again, regardless of whether or not facts are right in front of his face.’
In 2015 Mark Bowden wrote in Vanity Fair how Mr Trump had bragged about the Renoir on his plane in 1996, beckoning him to lean in close.
‘To see...what? The luminosity of the brush strokes? The masterly use of colour? No. The signature. “Worth $10million,” he told me.’ The Art Institute told the New York Daily News it was ‘satisfied that our version is real’. An original by Auguste Renoir could be worth more than £10million.
The White House did not respond to questions about Mr Trump’s painting.
Speculation about Mrs Trump began last Friday when she appeared alongside her husband on the White House lawn, her coat done up high, hair over her face and sunglasses.
Commenters on social media said she could have been a decoy, although photographs later showed it was clearly Mrs Trump.