Donald Trump's compulsive lies truly know no bounds.
As reported by the Chicago Tribune, the president has long claimed that Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s original painting Two Sisters (On The Terrace) lives in his New York City apartment. However, the one in Trump's apartment appears to be a fake, considering the Art Institute of Chicago has been in possession of the only copy since 1933.
Amanda Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Art Institute, told the Chicago Tribune that the museum is "satisfied that our version is real." The painting has lived at the Art Institute for 84 years, ever since Annie Swan Coburn donated it to the museum in 1933, Hicks explained. Coburn purchased it for $100,000 from art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who bought it from Pierre-Auguste Renoir himself way back in in 1881.
Despite the painting's 84-year history at the Art Institute, Trump has continually claimed that the version he owns is authentic. Timothy O'Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, recently told Vanity Fair's Inside the Hive podcast that Trump refused to believe O'Brien's assertion that the painting was a fake. O'Brien explained that when he visited Trump on his private jet over a decade ago, he asked him about the authenticity of the painting. Trump told him it was real, over and over, despite O'Brien's insistence it was not.
"Donald, it’s not," O'Brien recalled telling Trump. "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....That’s not an original." The next day, there was Trump, once again, telling people it was an original, O'Brien said on the podcast.
O'Brien noted that shortly after Trump was elected president, the painting could be seen in the background of Trump's New York home in a 60 Minutes interview. "He believes his own lies in a way that lasts for decades," O’Brien said on the podcast. "He'll tell the same stories time and time again, regardless of whether or not facts are right in front of his face."