An Animal Crossing: New Horizons player is on a journey to visit the real-life versions of all the artwork featured in the game. ACNH features a wide variety of artwork available from notorious dealer Redd, who sells both genuine works and fakes. Animal Crossing villagers will comment on fake art, meaning players need to keep an eye out to make sure they’re not being ripped-off.
From the outside, Animal Crossing is a strange game to feature a criminal art dealer, but that is exactly what Jolly Redd is. Formerly known as Crazy Redd, the cunning fox regularly comes to the player’s island in order to sell a variety of artwork, which can then be passed on to Blathers at the museum. In many cases, this art will turn out to be forged, but the original pieces can also be found in amongst the fakes, including paintings like the Mona Lisa. This means that many players find themselves developing a keen eye when dealing with Redd in order to tell Animal Crossing‘s fake and real paintings apart.
One Animal Crossing fan, however, has decided to explore the art world without getting involved with stolen pieces and forgeries. MayPlaysTV has embarked on a journey to visit the real-life versions of all the artwork featured in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This is an enormous undertaking, as the various paintings and statues are found all around the world in 11 different countries. Nevertheless, he has already been able to visit 15 of the 43 artworks in the game. The latest piece to be crossed off his list is the Mysterious Painting, known in reality as Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin. The Mysterious Painting is one of the few to not have a forged counterpart among Redd’s stock, meaning that players do not have to worry about it potentially being one of the hardest Animal Crossing fake art pieces to spot.
The international journey is being chronicled in a series of videos on the TikTok channel mayplaystv, with the most recent entry in the series being the Beautiful Statue (the Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch), located in the Louvre, Paris. Previous entries include the Famous Painting, otherwise known as the Mona Lisa, also found in the Louvre. Furthermore, the next few entries will apparently take place in Madrid, indicating that pieces like the Warm Painting (The Clothed Maja by Francisco Goya) will soon be making an appearance. For players without the means to visit the original in Madrid, the Warm Painting is another painting with no forgery, so they will be able to appreciate the real painting in Animal Crossing without fear of being duped.
With the artwork from New Horizons spread around 11 different countries, visiting them all is no small feat. Nevertheless, it is a task that MayPlaysTV has clearly committed himself to, being around a third of the way through the list already. Of course, not everyone can journey around the world to see these works of art in person. For those Animal Crossing players, however, Blathers’ own museum can provide a worthy substitute. Shady dealings aside, there is no doubt that the artwork featured in the game is beautiful. Even the forgeries can have their own charm to them, and can attract an appreciative comment or interaction from fellow Animal Crossing: New Horizons villagers when put on display in a player’s own home.
Sources: MayPlaysTV/Twitter, mayplaystv/TikTok