The comment to which you're replying isn't referring to replicas though, but rather original paintings fraudulently attributed to a famous artist: > FBI agents

The comment to which you're replying isn't referring to replicas though, but rather original paintings fraudulently attributed to a famous artist: > FBI agents have identified eight probable forged paintings, five of which were billed as previously unknown works of Ault, an American artist active through the 1940s. Two other paintings were purportedly created by Crawford, an artist active through the 1970s whose precisionist style was similar to that of Ault, according to the search warrant affidavit. The last painting was purportedly created by Abercrombie, a surrealist American artist active through the 1970s. To use your analogy, it would be as if someone created a car using Ford Mustang styling cues, but that wasn't a replica of any Mustang that Ford ever made, and claimed that it was a Ford Mustang prototype found hidden in a garage.