Glafira Rosales and the $80 million Knoedler Gallery forgery scandal
Glafira Rosales, a Long Island art dealer, supplied almost 40 forged Abstract Expressionist paintings, painted in a Queens garage by Chinese immigrant Pei-Shen Qian for under $9,000 each, to M. Knoedler & Co. and the Julian Weissman gallery between 1994 and 2011, falsely attributed to artists including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. The scheme brought in roughly $80 million before it collapsed and forced the 165-year-old Knoedler, one of New York's oldest galleries, to close in November 2011. Rosales pleaded guilty in September 2013 to conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and filing false tax returns. A federal judge sentenced her in January 2017 to the 82 days she had already served, nine months of house detention and three years of probation, crediting her cooperation and citing abuse she said she suffered from her partner and co-conspirator; she was later ordered to pay $81 million in restitution.
- Year
- 2017
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Reported loss
- $81.0 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Art forgery fraud
- Last reviewed
- 2026-11-02
The facts, as recorded
- M. Knoedler & Co. was founded in New York in 1846 and was, by the time it closed, the city's oldest gallery; under director Ann Freedman's leadership it sold almost 40 paintings supplied by Rosales between 1994 and 2011, falsely attributed to Abstract Expressionist artists including Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning.
- The paintings were painted by Pei-Shen Qian, a Chinese immigrant artist, in a garage in Queens, New York, for less than $9,000 each; Qian is believed to have returned to China and was not prosecuted in the United States.
- Freedman resigned from Knoedler in October 2009 amid rumors the paintings were forged; Knoedler closed permanently in November 2011, with its public statement citing business reasons rather than the forgery allegations.
- Rosales was arrested in May 2013 and pleaded guilty that September to conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and filing false tax returns.
- Her attorney said her 25-year partner and co-conspirator, Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz, who fled to Spain, was the scheme's actual mastermind, and that he had beaten her, tried to choke her, and threatened to kill her and their daughter; prosecutors did not dispute that she had been abused.
- At sentencing on January 31, 2017, US District Judge Katharine Polk Failla imposed no further jail time beyond the 82 days Rosales had already served, adding nine months of house detention and three years of probation; prosecutors did not oppose the sentence, citing her cooperation in tracing bank accounts in Spain and building the case against her co-conspirators.
- She forfeited all her assets except her retirement account; by the time of sentencing she was renting a room in a friend's house and working bussing dishes at a restaurant.
- A federal judge separately ordered her, later in 2017, to pay $81 million in restitution to the scandal's victims.
- Individual civil lawsuits against Knoedler and Freedman by defrauded collectors settled for amounts including $17 million over a fake Pollock bought by hedge fund manager Pierre Lagrange, $8.3 million over a fake Rothko bought by Domenico and Eleanore De Sole, and $4 million over a fake de Kooning bought by John D. Howard.
Why this case matters
This is the largest and longest-running scheme documented on this page, and it shows the fraud working inside the most credentialed part of the art market, not a fringe dealer, a gallery founded in 1846 and considered one of New York’s most established, over a span of 17 years.
A painter in a Queens garage, a gallery on the Upper East Side
Pei-Shen Qian painted the forgeries that Rosales brought to Knoedler for under $9,000 each. Knoedler resold them, attributed to major Abstract Expressionist names, for sums that eventually reached into the millions of dollars per painting. The gap between what the forger was paid and what collectors paid is the clearest measure of how much the gallery’s own reputation, rather than the paintings themselves, was actually being purchased.
A sentence built on cooperation and documented abuse
Rosales received no additional prison time beyond time already served, a sentence prosecutors did not oppose. The court credited her help tracing her co-conspirators’ Spanish bank accounts and accepted, without dispute from prosecutors, that she had acted partly out of fear for her own and her daughter’s safety under an abusive partner who fled the country rather than face the same charges.
The caveat
Rosales pleaded guilty in 2013 and was sentenced in 2017; the facts above reflect her plea, the sentencing record, and contemporaneous reporting of the hearing, not merely an allegation. Her co-conspirator Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz was indicted but, as of the sources reviewed for this page, not confirmed convicted in the United States; he is described here only as indicted and fled, not as convicted. Pei-Shen Qian was never prosecuted in the United States. The $81 million restitution figure is the amount a court ordered, not necessarily the amount actually recovered by the scandal’s victims, and the exact number of individual victims was not stated in the sources reviewed for this page.
Sources
- No further jail time for Glafira Rosales for her role in $80m Knoedler forgery scandal. The Art Newspaper. Accessed 2026-11-02. Supports: The January 2017 sentence, Rosales's 2013 guilty plea and charges, her cooperation, the abuse and duress claims against Bergantinos Diaz, her asset forfeiture, and her later circumstances.
- Knoedler Art Fraud Case: Glafira Rosales Ordered To Pay Back $81m. Artlyst. Accessed 2026-11-02. Supports: The $81 million restitution order issued later in 2017.
- Knoedler. Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-11-02. Supports: Knoedler's 1846 founding, Freedman's October 2009 resignation, the November 2011 closure statement, the 1994 to 2011 window and almost 40 forged paintings, Pei-Shen Qian's role and under-$9,000 per-painting price, and the Lagrange, De Sole and Howard lawsuit settlement figures.