To collect art in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, players must purchase paintings and statues from Jolly Redd’s Treasure Trawler. One of the pieces of art that tend to give players a lot of trouble is the Sinking Painting. It’s a complex work that makes it hard to tell if Redd is selling a fake or not. However, we’ll cover a way players can make sure they’re buying the real thing every time.
How to tell if the Sinking Painting is a fake in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Many of the fakes in Animal Crossing: New Horizons don’t immediately jump out as being a forgery. The Sinking Painting is a work that’s complicated enough that if players aren’t familiar with the original artwork, there’s no way they’d spot a forgery.
Fortunately, it’s not hard to get info about the real thing. Here’s some info about the real-world version of the Sinking Painting:
Ophelia
John Everett Mills, 1851-52
Oil on canvas
This painting captures Ophelia floating in a river and singing in the moments before she drowns. Queen Gertrude describes this scene in Act IV, Scene VII of Hamlet.
The painting currently resides at Tate Britain in London, England, and is valued at more than £30 million.
Strangely, Blathers will always take the Sinking Painting as genuine. However, the in-game version of it has several flaws. It’s been squeezed inward as the real painting is much broader. Additionally, the flowers on the river bank are white in the real painting, but pink in the game.
So, players don’t have to worry about the Sinking Painting being fake. Apparently, Blathers isn’t the expert he claims to be, as he’ll take the clearly imperfect version of Ophelia without batting an eye.
For those who want to know more about which paintings are real and fake, we have a guide covering every piece of art in Animal Crossing: New Horizons here.
