[MSN] A Massachusetts woman has been arrested on charges that she sold a phony Milton Avery painting that ended up in a New York gallery.

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Woman Arrested for Selling Forged Milton Avery Painting
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 11, 2007 
 
A Massachusetts woman has been arrested on charges that she sold a phony
painting that ended up in a New York gallery.

A "well known" gallery purchased the painting for $200,000, a law
enforcement source said. It was purported to be by the famous New York
artist Milton Avery and sold under the name "Summer Table, Gloucester."

Angela Hamblin of Revere, Mass., was arrested this morning and is to be
presented in federal court in Boston on one count of mail fraud, the source
said. A criminal complaint is expected to be unsealed shortly in U.S.
District Court in Manhattan, where the case will be prosecuted.

Ms. Hamblin is additionally accused of trying to palm off other paintings as
the works of famous artists, such as Franz Kline, Juan Gris, and J.M.W.
Turner, the source said. It was not immediately clear whether the paintings
are forgeries or the works of lesser-known artists who painted in a similar
style as those of the more famous painters.

Ms. Hamblin could not immediately be reached for comment. 

The gallery had received the painting from an unidentified North Carolinian
who had purchased it from Ms. Hamblin, the law enforcement source said. When
the same North Carolinian later approached the New York gallery offering to
sell another painting from Ms. Hamblin, the gallery grew suspicious that the
papers outlining the painting's provenance were fraudulent. The papers
claimed that the painting, purported to be by the Spaniard Juan Gris, had
come to Ms. Hamblin from the estate of her great grandfather. The great
grandfather had purchased it in 1932 from the ballet impresario, George
Balanchine, according to the papers presented to the gallery, the source
said.

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