Animal Crossing Art Guide: Every Real vs Fake Painting and the Masterpiece Behind It

by Luciano Drehmer October 17, 2026

by Luciano Drehmer Published on October 17, 2026

Every artwork Redd sells in Animal Crossing: New Horizons copies a real one: 43 pieces in all, 30 paintings (the wild painting comes in two halves) and 13 statues, from Vermeer's The Milkmaid to the Rosetta Stone. Sixteen are never forged. The other 27 can turn up as a fake that changes one detail, such as a missing hat or a star-shaped earring. This guide pairs each piece with the original, the museum that keeps it and the detail the forgery alters. Most of the paintings are among the most famous paintings in the world.

The dates in the tables are the ones the owning museums give, which is not always what the plaque in your island gallery says. A section further down sorts out where the game and the museums part ways.

How Redd's art shop works

Nintendo added the boat in a free update that went live on April 23, 2020. Its announcement promised that Jolly Redd "will occasionally show up in his boat to sell in-game art" and that, as in earlier Animal Crossing games, "players will have to figure out which art pieces are real and which are fake." Genuine pieces can be donated to the island museum, where they open an art gallery for paintings and statues alike.

Nookipedia's page on the Treasure Trawler fills in the rules. The boat moors at the secret beach behind your island, usually once or twice a week, and you need a ladder to get down to it. Each visit stocks four artworks at 4,980 Bells apiece: two to four paintings and up to two statues. A player can buy one artwork a day, purchases on other islands included, and it arrives at your house the next day. Redd also sells two pieces of furniture in colors Nook's Cranny does not carry, and those do not count against the limit.

Blathers judges authenticity when you try to donate. He turns fakes away, Nook's Cranny will not buy them, and unlike in earlier games a fake keeps its name after it is exposed. For the four artworks on board, Nookipedia gives these odds:

10% chance of 1 fake and 3 real
30% chance of 2 fake and 2 real
50% chance of 3 fake and 1 real
10% chance of 4 fake and 0 real

Six visits in ten therefore offer more fakes than real pieces. One consolation: each genuine piece has a 20% chance of being drawn from works your museum is still missing.

Paintings: the original, where it is and the fake's tell

Use your browser's find tool for the in-game name. The forgery details follow Nookipedia's list of forgeries in New Horizons; the dates and places come from the owning museums' own pages, listed under Sources.

In-game name	Real work and artist	Date and where it is	How to spot the fake
Academic painting	Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci (drawing)	Leonardo's years in Milan, by the museum's dating; Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, not on display for conservation reasons	A coffee stain in the top right corner and a key taped to the back of the canvas.
Amazing painting	The Night Watch, Rembrandt	1642; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam	The man in black at the center has lost his hat.
Basic painting	The Blue Boy, Thomas Gainsborough	1770; The Huntington, San Marino, California	The boy has a bowl cut with long bangs; the real one has shorter, wavier hair.
Calm painting	A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat	1884–86, border added 1888–89; Art Institute of Chicago	Always genuine.
Common painting	The Gleaners, Jean-François Millet	1857; Musée d'Orsay, Paris	Always genuine.
Detailed painting	Hydrangeas with Fowl (Ajisai sōkei-zu), Itō Jakuchū	1759; Museum of the Imperial Collections (Sannomaru Shōzōkan), Tokyo	Purple flowers and no stamp or signature on the left edge; the real one has blue flowers and both marks.
Dynamic painting	The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai (woodblock print)	about 1830–32; impressions in many museums, among them the Met, New York	Always genuine.
Famous painting	Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci	1503–1519; Louvre, Paris	Her eyebrows are raised instead of relaxed.
Flowery painting	Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh	1888; National Gallery, London	Always genuine.
Glowing painting	The Fighting Temeraire, J.M.W. Turner	1839; National Gallery, London	Always genuine.
Graceful painting	Beauty Looking Back, Hishikawa Moronobu	Edo period, 17th century; Tokyo National Museum	No white collar, and she fills the whole frame; she also turns to look the wrong way now and then.
Jolly painting	Summer, Giuseppe Arcimboldo	1563; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna	The artichoke in the chest is missing.
Moody painting	The Sower, Jean-François Millet	1850; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (a second version is in the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kōfu)	Always genuine.
Moving painting	The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli	about 1485; Uffizi, Florence	Open sky with floating flowers behind the woman on the right; the real one has trees there.
Mysterious painting	Isle of the Dead, Arnold Böcklin	1883 (third of five versions); Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin	Always genuine.
Nice painting	The Fifer, Édouard Manet	1866; Musée d'Orsay, Paris	Always genuine.
Perfect painting	Apples and Oranges, Paul Cézanne	about 1899; Musée d'Orsay, Paris	Always genuine.
Proper painting	A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, Édouard Manet	1882; The Courtauld, London	Always genuine.
Quaint painting	The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer	about 1660; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam	The milk pours out wide and bright instead of in a thin stream.
Scary painting	Ōtani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei, Tōshūsai Sharaku (woodblock print)	1794; one impression is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York	Brows slanting up so he looks sad, and he smiles now and then; the real actor scowls.
Scenic painting	The Hunters in the Snow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder	1565; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna	Only one hunter at bottom left instead of two.
Serene painting	Lady with an Ermine, Leonardo da Vinci	about 1490; National Museum in Kraków (Czartoryski Museum)	The ermine has a black-and-white pattern; the real one is pure white.
Sinking painting	Ophelia, John Everett Millais	1851–2; Tate Britain, London	Always genuine.
Solemn painting	Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez	1656; Prado, Madrid	The man in the doorway raises his right arm as if waving; in the real one it goes behind the curtain.
Twinkling painting	The Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh	June 1889; MoMA, New York	Always genuine.
Warm painting	The Clothed Maja, Francisco de Goya	1800–1807; Prado, Madrid	Always genuine.
Wild painting, left half	Wind God and Thunder God screens (Fūjin and Raijin), Tawaraya Sōtatsu	Edo period, 17th century; Kennin-ji temple, Kyoto (deposited at the Kyoto National Museum)	Raijin is green; the real one is white.
Wild painting, right half	Wind God and Thunder God screens (Fūjin and Raijin), Tawaraya Sōtatsu	Edo period, 17th century; Kennin-ji temple, Kyoto (deposited at the Kyoto National Museum)	Fūjin is white; the real one is green.
Wistful painting	Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer	about 1665; Mauritshuis, The Hague	A star-shaped earring, and her eyes open and close.
Worthy painting	Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix	1830; Louvre, Paris	Always genuine.

Statues: the original, where it is and the fake's tell

Thirteen statues complete the set, from a Jōmon clay figure to Rodin's Thinker, and only the familiar and great statues are never faked. Two of the forger's changes brush against real history. The Louvre notes holes on the Venus de Milo for bronze additions, a diadem and a bracelet on the right arm, so she did once wear jewelry, if not three necklaces. And the right wing of the Winged Victory, the one the fake shrinks, is a plaster reconstruction.

In-game name	Real work and artist	Date and where it is	How to spot the fake
Ancient statue	Shakōki-dogū (goggle-eyed dogū), Jōmon period	Final Jōmon period, 1000–400 BC; Tokyo National Museum	Two antennae on the head; at night the eyes glow, and it floats when you interact with it.
Beautiful statue	Venus de Milo	about 150–125 BC; Louvre, Paris	Three necklaces; the real one wears none.
Familiar statue	The Thinker, Auguste Rodin	conceived 1880, enlarged 1904; Musée Rodin, Paris, one of many casts	Always genuine.
Gallant statue	David, Michelangelo	1501–1504; Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence	A book tucked between his arm and waist.
Great statue	King Kamehameha I, Thomas R. Gould	modeled 1879, unveiled 1883; in front of the Judiciary Building, Honolulu (the first cast stands in Kapaʻau)	Always genuine.
Informative statue	Rosetta Stone	196 BC; British Museum, London	Blue and glowing at night; the real one is dull gray.
Motherly statue	Capitoline Wolf	5th century BC, by the museum's dating; Capitoline Museums, Rome	The she-wolf's tongue hangs out.
Mystic statue	Bust of Nefertiti, workshop of Thutmose	about 1351–1334 BC; Neues Museum, Berlin	An earring on her right ear.
Robust statue	Discobolus (Discus Thrower), Roman copy after Myron	2nd century AD copies of a lost bronze of about 460–450 BC; British Museum, London, and Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome	A wristwatch on his right wrist.
Rock-head statue	Olmec colossal head	about 1200–900 BC; Museo de Antropología de Xalapa, Veracruz, among others	The lips curl into a slight smile.
Tremendous statue	Houmuwu Ding, Shang dynasty bronze	Late Shang dynasty, reign of King Wu Ding; national museum in Beijing	It has a lid; the real one is open at the top.
Valiant statue	Winged Victory (Nike) of Samothrace	about 200–175 BC; Louvre, Paris	Mirrored: left leg forward and a smaller right wing; the real one steps forward on the right leg.
Warrior statue	Terracotta Army warrior	Qin dynasty, before 210 BC; tomb complex of the First Qin Emperor, near Xi'an	The soldier holds a shovel.

Six famous originals, up close

Quaint painting: Vermeer's The Milkmaid

Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, about 1660 — The thin stream of milk at the center is the detail the game's forger alters.
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The quaint painting copies Vermeer's The Milkmaid, which the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam dates to about 1660. The museum's own description reads like a hint for the game: "Except for the stream of milk, everything else is still." That stream is exactly what Redd's forger changes, widening it into a bright gush. The game's plaque notes that many people find the original "surprisingly small in real life", and the numbers agree: the canvas measures 45.5 × 41 cm (17.9 × 16.1 in).

The same plaque says Vermeer painted it "at only 25 years of age." Vermeer was born in Delft in 1632, so by the Rijksmuseum's date he was closer to 28. The Mauritshuis counts only 36 known paintings by him, and our guide to Vermeer's paintings and where they hang goes through them.

Wistful painting: Girl with a Pearl Earring

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, about 1665 — Vermeer built the pearl from a highlight and a reflection of the white collar.
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Girl with a Pearl Earring hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, which dates it to about 1665 and calls it a tronie: a study of an imaginary figure in an exotic turban, not a portrait of a known sitter. Redd's forger goes after the jewel and turns it into a star. In Vermeer's canvas, the museum explains, the pearl "consists of little more than two brushstrokes", a highlight at upper left and the soft reflection of the collar below. "There is nothing more, not even a silver hook."

The game's plaque ends by asking whether it is a real pearl at all. The Mauritshuis thinks probably not: the pearl "is too large to be real", perhaps a glass drop varnished to look matte, or simply Vermeer's invention.

Famous painting: the Mona Lisa

The Louvre dates Leonardo's Mona Lisa 1503–1519, a span that explains the plaque's line that Leonardo kept it for himself "until the very end." The museum's record agrees that he went on working on it, still unfinished, until his death in 1519, and adds that Francis I very probably acquired it in 1518. In the game, the fake shows in her face: the eyebrows lift instead of resting.

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1503–1519, the original — Both keep the same crop and pose: her right hand resting on her left wrist, the winding path in the landscape at left and the arched bridge at right.

Our hand-painted oil reproduction of Mona Lisa — Both keep the same crop and pose: her right hand resting on her left wrist, the winding path in the landscape at left and the arched bridge at right.

Leonardo is the only artist with three works on Redd's boat, and all three can be forged: the academic painting (Vitruvian Man), the famous painting and the serene painting (Lady with an Ermine). Our guide to Leonardo da Vinci's paintings covers the rest of his short list.

Amazing painting: The Night Watch

In Rembrandt's The Night Watch (1642), the man in black whose hat disappears from the fake is the picture's central figure, Captain Frans Banninck Cocq. The Rijksmuseum explains that he "is telling his lieutenant to start the company marching." The canvas still measures 379.5 × 453.5 cm (149.4 × 178.5 in), although four pieces were cut off in 1715, the biggest from the left, to fit it between two doors in Amsterdam's Town Hall.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Night Watch, 1642, the original — The copy keeps the captain's broad black hat, the detail the game's forger removes, along with his red sash and the lieutenant beside him in pale yellow.

Our hand-painted oil reproduction of The Night Watch — The copy keeps the captain's broad black hat, the detail the game's forger removes, along with his red sash and the lieutenant beside him in pale yellow.

For the rest of his career, see Rembrandt's most famous paintings.

Basic painting: The Blue Boy

Thomas Gainsborough, The Blue Boy, 1770 — The boy's short, wavy hair is the part to compare with the game's forgery.
Zoom

The Huntington in San Marino, California, dates Gainsborough's The Blue Boy to 1770, the year it was shown at the Royal Academy, where its nod to Van Dyck invited comparisons between the two painters. Redd's forger gives the boy a bowl cut with long bangs. The real canvas hides changes of its own: The Huntington points out a man's head at the top center, left from an abandoned portrait, which shows Gainsborough reused the canvas, and a dog at lower right that he painted over.

Solemn painting: Las Meninas

Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, 1656 — José Nieto stands in the lit doorway at the back, the figure the game's forgery changes.
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The Prado dates Velázquez's Las Meninas to 1656. The figure that decides real or fake is the chamberlain José Nieto, standing in the doorway at the back. In the forgery he raises his right arm as if waving; in the original his arm disappears behind the curtain. The game's plaque gets the rest right: the faces in the mirror belong to Philip IV and Mariana of Austria, parents of the Infanta Margarita at the center.

Spain has one more picture on the boat, Goya's The Clothed Maja, which is never forged. The Prado notes that it is first recorded in 1808 together with its companion, The Nude Maja. More of his work is in our guide to Goya's famous paintings.

Where the game's plaques and the museums disagree

The plaques in your island gallery are mostly sound. The National Gallery, London, agrees with the game that Van Gogh painted seven Sunflowers, and Böcklin's Isle of the Dead of 1883 is indeed on wood, as the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin records. These lines, though, do not match what the owners say.

Piece	The game's plaque	What the owner says
Academic painting (Vitruvian Man)	The drawing follows the ideal proportions "as stated in De architectura," the treatise by Vitruvius.	The Gallerie dell'Accademia thinks Leonardo probably did not know the treatise in depth: it was then available only in Latin, a language he did not understand.
Glowing painting (The Fighting Temeraire)	The ship was "commanded by Admiral Nelson."	The National Gallery, London: at Trafalgar in 1805 the Temeraire was "defending Nelson's flagship Victory". Nelson's own ship was the Victory.
Jolly painting (Summer)	Oil on canvas, circa 1563.	The 1563 Summer in Vienna is painted on limewood. The Louvre's version on canvas is dated 1573.
Calm painting (La Grande Jatte)	Circa 1885; the dot technique made it take two years.	The Art Institute of Chicago dates it 1884–86 and says Seurat came back to it two years after he started, adding figures such as the monkey on a leash.
Sinking painting (Ophelia)	1852.	Tate dates it 1851–2. Millais began the background in July 1851 at Ewell, Surrey.
Familiar statue (The Thinker)	1902.	The Musée Rodin: conceived in 1880, about 70 cm tall, to crown The Gates of Hell, where it stood for Dante under the title The Poet. The colossal version followed in 1904.
Mystic statue (Bust of Nefertiti)	Nobody knows whether the left eye fell out or was never finished.	The Berlin museums quote Borchardt's diary from the 1912 excavation: "Only much later did I realise that it had never existed."

Always genuine: the 16 you can buy without checking

These never come as fakes. Paintings: calm (Seurat), common (Millet's Gleaners), dynamic (Hokusai's Great Wave), flowery (Van Gogh's Sunflowers), glowing (Turner's Fighting Temeraire), moody (Millet's Sower), mysterious (Böcklin's Isle of the Dead), nice (Manet's Fifer), perfect (Cézanne's Apples and Oranges), proper (Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergère), sinking (Millais's Ophelia), twinkling (Van Gogh's The Starry Night), warm (Goya's Clothed Maja) and worthy (Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People). Statues: familiar (The Thinker) and great (King Kamehameha I).

Seven of the 30 paintings are French: Seurat's Grande Jatte, Millet's two peasant scenes, Manet's two canvases, Cézanne's still life and Delacroix's Liberty. Not one of them has a forged version, so French painting is the safest buy on the boat; the stories behind several of them are in our guide to famous French paintings. New York has a share too: MoMA owns The Starry Night, and the Met's print collection includes both the Great Wave and Sharaku's actor, while the canvases on its walls are covered in our list of famous paintings at the Met.

Nookipedia's list of New Horizons forgeries notes two changes from New Leaf: the dynamic painting could be faked in New Leaf but is always genuine now, while two statues that were always genuine in New Leaf can now be forged.

From Redd's boat to the museum wall

Every piece in Redd's hold has a real counterpart, from the small Milkmaid in Amsterdam to Las Meninas, 320.3 × 279.1 cm (126.1 × 109.9 in), in Madrid. Outside the game, telling an original from a copy means reading the surface, the back of the canvas and the paper trail together, as our guide to telling a real painting from a fake explains. And if one of these belongs on your wall rather than on your island, The Milkmaid and The Starry Night are two of the masterpieces above that Art & See paints by hand in oil.

Sources

by Luciano Drehmer Published on October 17, 2026

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Frequently asked questions

How do you tell if a painting is fake in Animal Crossing?

Inspect the artwork on Redd's boat before you buy and compare it with the original. Every forgery in New Horizons alters a single visible feature, such as a hat, an earring, a hunter or the color of a flower. If the piece is one of the 16 that never have a fake version, there is nothing to check. Experts use a slower version of the same habit on real canvases, set out in how to tell if a painting is real or fake.

How many artworks are in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

43. Nookipedia counts 30 paintings, both halves of the wild painting included, and 13 statues. A forged version exists for 27 of them; the remaining 16 are always real.

What is the quaint painting, and how do you spot the fake?

It is Johannes Vermeer's The Milkmaid, which hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and is dated about 1660. Watch the milk: a thin trickle means the piece is genuine, while a broad, bright pour means it is a forgery.

Can you sell or donate fake art in Animal Crossing?

Neither. Blathers turns forgeries away and Nook's Cranny will not buy them. A fake can still be placed like any other piece of furniture, and the forged ancient statue even floats when you interact with it.

Where can you see the real artworks from Animal Crossing?

In museums on three continents. Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum has The Milkmaid and The Night Watch; the Louvre has the Mona Lisa, Liberty Leading the People, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory; the Prado in Madrid has Las Meninas and The Clothed Maja; London's National Gallery has Sunflowers and The Fighting Temeraire; Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum has The Hunters in the Snow and Summer. In New York, MoMA owns The Starry Night, and in Tokyo the Tokyo National Museum keeps Beauty Looking Back and the goggle-eyed dogū.

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Animal Crossing Art Guide: Every Real vs Fake Painting and the Masterpiece Behind It

How Redd's art shop works

Paintings: the original, where it is and the fake's tell

Statues: the original, where it is and the fake's tell