Real masterpieces star in Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme

At the end of Wes Anderson's new caper The Phoenician Scheme, there are some unusual credits.

- Esther Zuckerman

NEW YORK - At the end of Wes Anderson's new caper The Phoenician Scheme, there are some unusual credits.

In addition to the cast and crew, the artworks featured in the film are listed, complete with ownership details.

That is because the pieces on-screen are not reproductions. They are, in fact, the actual masterpieces by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rene Magritte and other well-known artists.

In the past, the 56-year-old American film-maker has faked a Kandinsky and a Klimt. Here, he went for the real thing.

"We have a character who's a collector, who's a possessor; he wants to own things. And we thought because it's sort of art and commerce mixed together this time, we should try to have the real thing," Anderson said via a voice note.

What he ended up with was impressive. The fictional collection of businessman Zsa-zsa Korda (played by Benicio del Toro) includes Renoir's Enfant Assis En Robe Bleue, which was once owned by Hollywood icon and screen legend Greta Garbo, and Magritte's The Equator.

There is also a selection of works from the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Germany that includes pieces from the 17th century.

Getting a collector or an art institution to hand over a painting worth millions of dollars to a film production is not an easy task. The negotiations fell mostly to Mr Jasper Sharp, a curator who had worked with Anderson and his wife, Juman Malouf, on their 2018 exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria, where Mr Sharp is based.