As America’s First Lady sits in her gilded Trump Tower office, the decor is undeniably ostentatious – marble columns, gold statues and a Louis XIV desk – while on the wall hangs what appears to be a masterpiece by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Titled La Loge, or The Theatre Box, it features a fashionable couple attending a show in Paris and is considered a priceless work which exemplifies the Impressionist artist’s dazzling technique.
But if viewers of a new film about Melania Trump are fooled into thinking the artwork is genuine, true aficionados will not be. For the real 1874 Renoir is on display 3,500 miles away in London‘s Courtauld Institute of Art.
In the past two years it has been loaned to the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and The National Gallery of Art in Washington – but has never graced the President’s New York home.
One former White House aide told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Donald Trump loves to flaunt his wealth, but like so many things in his life, it’s not always what it seems.
He might know the Art Of The Deal, but doesn’t know much about dealing in art.’
It is not the first time a Renoir of Mr Trump’s has been exposed as a fake. In 2015, journalist Mark Bowden wrote in Vanity Fair how in 1996 Mr Trump had shown off what he claimed was an original hanging in his private Boeing 727, telling him it was ‘worth $10 million’.
But the genuine painting Two Sisters (On The Terrace) was, in fact, hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago – where it had been since 1933.
The 104-minute film, titled Melania, will hit theaters worldwide on January 30, chronicling the dramatic 20 days leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration
The fake La Loge, or The Theatre Box featuring in Melania’s officer in the Melania film trailer
The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, which has ‘La Loge’ by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in its permanent collection
The copy has since been seen in TV interviews at Trump Tower.
La Loge is visible in the trailer for Amazon’s forthcoming film Melania, which follows the First Lady for the 20 days leading up to her husband’s 2025 inauguration.
She is said to have received £30 million for the project. A friend of the President said last night: ‘Trump can appreciate great art, but he finds the New York art crowd elitist and phoney.’
Experts say the genuine La Loge would probably break the £46million record for a Renoir, were it ever sold. ‘Museum-quality’ copies can be bought for around £4,000.
