NOTORIOUS Bolton master forger Shaun Greenhalgh will be selling some of his original work at a forthcoming auction.

Mr Greenhalgh, who achieved national fame after being imprisoned in 2007 when his forgeries were found out will have a number of items up for auction at Bolton Auction Rooms.

He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison and during his incarceration he wrote his autobiography, A Forger’s Tale: Confessions of the Bolton Forger, which was published in 2017.

Mr Greenhalgh, who still lives in Bolton and is currently working on a feature film, conned the art world and experts of London with the help of his father from his shed in Bromley Cross and that shed was even recreated for an exhibition at the V&A Museum after his forgeries came to light.

One of his most famous pieces was the Amarna Princess which his father sold to the Bolton Museum for £440,000 in 2003, based on an art style of Ancient Egypt.

However, Mr Greenhalgh’s forgeries came into contact with the museum ten years earlier. In 1993 he painted a watercolour supposedly by the painter ‘Thomas Moran’, an artist who, like Mr Greenhalgh, was born in Bolton.

Mr Greenhalgh intended to sell the painting at auction in London, but took it to the Bolton Museum first as they had a few Morans and he thought they would give it the ‘thumbs up’. The museum then got a grant and bought it for £10,000.

On this, Mr Greenhalgh says in the book: “It’s something I hugely regret.

“Bolton Museum has been one of my favourite places from my earliest memories.”

The antiques and collectables auction takes place on July 8 at 10am, but before that there will be four days of viewing at the auction rooms in Breightmet Drive, beginning on July 4.