Entertainment

Donald Trump’s ‘original Renoir’ painting is a fake, a Chicago art museum says

Alexia Fernandez         October 20, 2017

VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images; Olivier Douliery/Pool /Bloomberg/Getty images

It’s a battle of fake hues: Who has a real Renoir painting, Donald Trump or the Art Institute of Chicago?

Trump thinks he does.

On Thursday, the museum disagreed and insisted that the real “Two Sisters on the Terrace” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir is hanging on its walls and not Trump’s.

Amanda Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Art Institute of Chicago, told the Chicago Tribune that the institute was “satisfied that our version is real.”

The Renoir was gifted to the institute in 1933 by Annie Swan Coburn, who bought it from Paul Durand Ruel for $100,000, according to their website.

It was painted in 1881, with an inscription at the lower right that reads, “Renoir ’81.”

Tim O’Brien, the President’s biographer, told Vanity Fair’s “Inside the Hive” podcast last week that he told Trump that the President did not have the original, when he spotted the painting inside of the mogul’s private jet in 2005.

Curious the writer asked Trump about the work, which the now-President declared was an original Renoir. O’Brien challenged him, saying, “No, it’s not Donald.”

When Trump insisted that it was, O’Brien said, “Donald, it’s not. I grew up in Chicago, that Renoir is called Two Sisters on the Terrace, and it’s hanging on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago.”

The next day, while on the jet again, Trump pointed out the painting and said, as if the previous day’s conversation had never occurred, “You know, that’s an original Renoir.”

O’Brien said he decided not the pursue the conversation.

Years later, the painting made it’s way into Trump Tower in New York City, where it was visible in the background of a Fox News interview with Melania Trump during his presidential campaign in March 2016.

“I’m sure he’s still telling people who come into the apartment, ‘It’s an original, it’s an original,’” O’Brien said in the podcast.

“He believes his own lies in a way that lasts for decades,” O’Brien continued. “He’ll tell the same stories time and time again, regardless of whether or not facts are right in front of his face.”

Neither the President or the White House has responded.

This article originally appeared on People.com