You hear that sneaky, low-tempo music playing near the secret beach at the back of your island. You see the shadowy silhouette of a rusted trawler bobbing in the waves. Jolly Redd is back. For Animal Crossing: New Horizons players, this fox is either a best friend or a total nightmare. He’s charming, sure, but he’s also trying to sell you a "Wistful Painting" that has a star-shaped earring instead of a pearl one. If you donate that to Blathers, you're going to get a very polite, very disappointing lecture about how the museum only accepts "the real deal."
Getting your art wing finished is arguably the hardest task in the game. It’s a slow burn. Between the RNG of Redd actually showing up—though the 2.0 update made this easier with the Harv’s Island co-op—and the fact that he often carries a boatload of forgeries, you need a reliable Redd ACNH art guide in your head or on your screen to avoid wasting 4,980 Bells. Honestly, the money isn't even the problem. It’s the heartbreak of losing that one daily purchase slot on a fake statue you can’t even sell to Tommy and Timmy.
Why Redd is So Good at Screwing You Over
Redd isn't just a random merchant; he’s a mechanic designed to test your observation skills. Unlike the bugs or fish, which are mostly about timing and location, the art gallery is about art history. Or, at least, Nintendo's slightly altered version of it. The game uses real-world masterpieces like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or the Rosetta Stone and introduces tiny, often hilarious defects to the fakes.
The problem? Some pieces are "Always Real." You don't even have to look at them. If you see the Great Wave off Kanagawa (the Great Painting), buy it. It's never fake. Same goes for the Sinking Painting (Ophelia) or the Glowing Painting (The Fighting Temeraire). But then you have the Wild Painting Right Half and Wild Painting Left Half. These two are the bane of every completionist's existence. Not only are they rare, but the fakes are incredibly subtle—just a color swap on the demon’s skin. If you mess that up, you're waiting weeks, maybe months, for another shot.
The Statues: Where Things Get Weird
Statues are where Redd’s forgeries get truly bizarre. Take the Ancient Statue, which is based on a Jomon-period Dogu figurine. The real one is a historical artifact. The fake one? It has antennae. And sometimes, it glows at night. Or floats.
Wait. It literally floats.
If you interact with a fake Ancient Statue at night, it levitates. While that makes it useless for the museum, it actually makes it a pretty cool decoration for a "haunted" section of your island. This is a nuance many players miss: fakes aren't always "bad." They just don't belong in the museum. The Fake Informative Statue is a literal neon blue Rosetta Stone. It looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. It’s objectively cooler than the real one, even if Blathers hates it.
The Most Common Fakes You’ll Encounter
If you’re looking at paintings, there are a few "usual suspects" that Redd loves to cycle through.
The Academic Painting (Vitruvian Man) often has a coffee stain in the top right corner. It’s such a petty move by Redd. Leonardo da Vinci didn't leave his espresso on his masterpiece, but the forgery version does.
Then there’s the Moving Painting (The Birth of Venus). In the real version, there’s a lush forest on the right side. In the fake? The forest is just gone. It’s a blank, depressing shoreline. You’ve gotta look closely at the background details, not just the central figure. Redd relies on you being lazy. He hopes you'll just see a lady in a shell and hit "buy."
- Wistful Painting: Check the earring. Star is fake, pearl is real. In the 2.0 update, the fake actually closes its eyes at night. Creepy.
- Scary Painting: The eyebrows. In the fake, the man looks sad or startled with eyebrows that slant up. In the real one, he looks angry and menacing.
- Amazing Painting: Look for the man in the center. In the real one, he has a red sash. In the fake, the sash is missing or the hat is wrong.
Managing the Harv’s Island Loophole
Before the 2.0 update, we were all at the mercy of the random spawn rate. You’d check your secret beach, see nothing, and wait another week. Now, you can go to Harv’s Island and pay 100,000 Bells to set up Redd’s permanent trailer.
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This changed the game.
Here’s the trick: Redd refreshes his inventory every Monday. However, if you buy a piece of art—even a fake one—he will replace that spot with a new item the very next day. If you’re wealthy in Bells but poor in art, you should buy a fake every single day just to force the inventory to cycle. It’s basically "card counting" for Animal Crossing. You’re clearing the deck to find the real masterpieces. Just remember to toss the fakes in a trash can later, because you can't sell them to the Nooks and they'll just clutter up your storage.
Identifying the "Always Real" Masterpieces
It is a massive relief when you see one of these because you can stop squinting at your Switch screen. These pieces do not have a forged version in the game files:
- Calm Painting (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte)
- Common Painting (The Gleaners)
- Flowery Painting (Sunflowers)
- Glowing Painting (The Fighting Temeraire)
- Great Painting (Under the Wave off Kanagawa)
- Moody Painting (The Sower)
- Mysterious Painting (Isle of the Dead)
- Nice Painting (The Young Flautist)
- Proper Painting (A Bar at the Folies-Bergère)
- Sinking Painting (Ophelia)
- Twinkling Painting (The Starry Night)
- Worthy Painting (Liberty Leading the People)
If Redd has any of these, and you don't have them in your museum yet, grab them immediately. Don't think. Just buy.
The Struggle with the Wild Paintings
We need to talk about the Wild Painting Left Half and Wild Painting Right Half. These are based on the Wind and Thunder Gods folding screens by Tawaraya Sōtatsu.
On the Left Half, the god is usually white. In the fake, he’s green.
On the Right Half, the god is usually green. In the fake, he’s white.
It’s a simple color swap, but because these pieces are so rare, people often panic and buy the wrong one. I’ve seen players trade 40 Nook Miles Tickets for a Wild Painting only to realize it’s a fake. It’s brutal. Always double-check the skin color of the deity before you commit. If the deity on the Left Half is green, you’re looking at a forgery. Period.
How to Handle Fakes Once You Have Them
So, you messed up. Or maybe you bought a fake on purpose because you liked the way the Valiant Statue (Winged Victory of Samothrace) looks in your garden even if it’s the fake version with the wrong leg forward. What do you do with them?
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You can’t sell them at Nook’s Cranny. They won't take "unauthenticated" goods. You can’t trade them to villagers easily. Your best bet is to use them as decoration. Fake art is a staple for "trash-core" or "haunted" themed islands. If you truly want them gone, you have to throw them in a trash can furniture item or go to a Mystery Island and leave them there. It's a bit of a process, which is why most people just avoid fakes unless they’re the "cool" ones like the floating Ancient Statue or the haunted Wistful Painting that changes at night.
The Mystery of the Haunted Art
Nintendo added a layer of detail that most people miss. Some of the fakes in the Redd ACNH art guide are actually haunted.
The Wistful Painting (Girl with a Pearl Earring) is a prime example. At around 7:00 PM, the eyes on the fake version will close. If you look at it again later, they might open. The Ancient Statue glows with a blue light. The Graceful Painting (Beauty Looking Back) sometimes has the figure turn her head to look at you if you walk past it.
These aren't glitches. They’re intentional Easter eggs. It makes the "fake" art collectable in its own right for a subset of the community that loves the occult side of Animal Crossing.
Actionable Steps for Your Next Visit
Don't let the fox win. Next time you see that smoke rising from the back of your island, follow these steps:
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- Turn your screen brightness all the way up. Some of the differences, like the shape of the eyebrows on the Scary Painting or the color of the flowers on the Moving Painting, are tiny. You won't see them in handheld mode with the backlight dimmed.
- Use the zoom camera. Open your NookPhone and use the camera app to get a close-up look at the piece before talking to Redd.
- Check the "Always Real" list first. If he has one, buy it. Even if you already have it, real art is a high-value trading item on communities like Nookazon or Reddit.
- Buy the fakes on Harv's Island. If you're trying to fill your museum, treat the 5,000 Bells as a "refresh fee" to get new stock the next day.
- Verify the statues by their stance. For the Gallant Statue (David), check if he's holding a book. (Real David does not carry a book). For the Valiant Statue, check which leg is forward.
Completing the art gallery is a marathon, not a sprint. You’re going to get duped at least once—everyone does. But with a solid grasp of what to look for, you’ll eventually have a museum that would make Blathers proud and a secret beach that no longer feels like a scam zone.
Start by checking your current gallery and making a physical list of what's missing. When you go to Redd's, compare his inventory against your "Always Real" list first. If nothing matches, pull up a high-resolution image of the real-world artwork and play the world's highest-stakes game of "Spot the Difference." If the eyebrows look a little too arched or the earring is the wrong shape, walk away. Or buy it, put it in your basement, and wait for it to blink at you. Your call.