A German museum worker has been sacked for putting one of his own paintings on display in the hope it would make him famous.

The unnamed technical worker, at Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne, believed that secretly installing his own work in the same building as the likes of Henri Matisse and Salvador Dali might lead to an “artistic breakthrough”.

According to Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper, the 51-year-old smuggled his painting into the museum and put it up on a wall.

It appears that no one caught onto the ruse at first, presumably as there would be nothing unusual about the sight of a technical worker tinkering with the museum’s exhibits.

The painting remained on display for an undisclosed period of time, and the worker was eventually dismissed once museum staff discovered his daring deception.

Criminal damage report

To make matters worse, museum chiefs have also reported the worker to police for committing criminal damage, after he drilled two holes into a wall in the museum.

It was not immediately clear if this was related to a separate incident or was part of the worker’s attempts to make his own painting display look as legitimate as possible.

The style and qualities of the painting are shrouded in mystery: the museum has only disclosed its dimensions, 24 by 47 inches (60 by 120 centimetres).

The decision to both sack the worker and report him to local police suggests that the museum’s leadership did not see the funny side of the incident.

“The supervisors notice something like this immediately,” a spokesman for Pinakothek der Moderne said when approached for comment by Süddeutsche Zeitung.

A similar incident occurred a few weeks ago in the city of Bonn, where a student smuggled her own work into the Bundeskunsthalle and fixed it to the wall with double-sided sticky tape.

On that occasion, however, the deception went unnoticed and remained on display until the end of the exhibition. Bundeskunsthalle staff also adopted a more light-hearted approach to the ruse.

“We find this funny and would like to get to know the artist,” the museum wrote on X. “Get in touch! There’s no anger, word of honour.”

The Munich museum did not immediately respond to The Telegraph when asked if it had any photographs of the painting in question, and whether it felt the museum worker had any artistic talent.