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A satanic statuette long thought to be made by post-impressionist artist Paul Gauguin is a fake, it has been revealed. The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which is thought to have paid over $3 million for “Head with Horns,” in 2002, has been removed from public display, New York Post reports. 

On the Getty website, the previously misattributed sandalwood statue is now listed as “Not currently on view,” and its artist/maker is “Unknown.”

The artwork’s online explainer goes into further detail: “Who made the sculpture is unknown and its journey between the Marquesas Islands where it was photographed in 1894 and Switzerland where it was in a private collection by 1993 has not been documented yet,” it reads.

The change to “unknown” was officially made late last year — but wasn’t confirmed until Tuesday by the French news outlet Le Figaro.

“In December 2019 the museum changed the attribution of the sculpture ‘Head with Horns’ to ‘unknown,’ ” a Getty spokeswoman tells the Art Newspaper. “This decision was based on scholarly research over recent years by Getty professionals and other experts in the field, including significant new evidence that was not available at the time of its acquisition.”

In a press release announcing the statue’s purchase 18 years ago, the Getty declared it a “powerful and personal sculpture, which was displayed in Gauguin’s own house in Panaaiua, Tahiti.”

Before being acquired by the Getty, the piece was owned by New York gallery Wildenstein & Company. This isn’t the first time the gallery has been embroiled in a misattributed art controversy: Last year, Wildenstein was sued for the 1985 sale of what was allegedly a fake Bonnard painting.

The post-impressionist artist, who only achieved fame after his 1903 death, has recently been subject to a “cancel culture” controversy.

“Gauguin undoubtedly exploited his position as a privileged Westerner [in French Polynesia] to make the most of the sexual freedoms available to him,” warned one wall text at a recent exhibition of his work at London’s National Gallery.

Gauguin is known to have had sex with young Polynesian girls, fathering children with two of them.