Japanese museums will withdraw from exhibition three paintings purported to be by Marc Chagall because of claims that they are forgeries.

The Marc Chagall Committee, a Paris-based group authorized to authenticate work by the Franco-Russian artist, has told the Bunkamura Museum of Art in Tokyo that the paintings attributed to Chagall in a recent exhibition are fakes.

The paintings Portrait of a Woman (1908), Family (1911-1912) and Fiddler (1917) were lent for the Japanese exhibit by the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

The Moscow museum insists the paintings are by Chagall, but the Chagall committee says the painting techniques are dubious.

"We are going to leave it to the two of them to discuss the paintings' authenticity," Japanese museum spokesman Masao Kotani said in an interview with Agence France Presse.

The Suntory Museum in Osaka, which plans an exhibition called The Springtime of Russian Avant-Garde from the Collection of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, to begin later this month, plans to pull the three paintings.

The exhibition, without the three disputed works. will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts in Gifu Prefecture and the Museum of Modern Art in Saitama Prefecture.

Chagall is known for his vibrant abstract paintings and stained glass and for his use of symbolism.

Born 1887 in Belarus, he began his painting career in Russia but fled anti-Semitism to live in Paris. He died in 1985.