Midsomer Forgeries

I was looking an episode of Midsomer Murders (series 12, episode 3, "The Black Book"), where  a series of quite gruesome deaths

                              Note: from here onward, spoilers on that episode may appear.

are caused by the possession of a book detailing the small "errors" that a forger intentionally added to a series of paintings attributed to a 18th century painter.

At some point, a character destroys one of the forged paintings - and I felt it jarring.

The late Federico Zeri maintained that he was opposed to the destruction of forgeries, even in those cases in which these are recognizable as such - without any possible doubt - simply by stylistic analysis (i.e. the ones that suck).

He thought that they were worthy of conservation as forgeries, too, are part of art history.
In each era, he argued, the choices of the forgers are clues to read the tastes of the public.

As for the forgeries that are so good that they cannot be recognized without "external" documentary proofs - like the ones at the core of that Midsomer's episode - or forensic science, and fool experts for years or decades... well, I think that these are pieces of art, although maybe "minor".

Over the rest of the episode it is discovered that the author of the forgery was a renowned, local artist that had begun the "forging" with a simple study of the style of the old master, made with the honest intent of learning the essence of the work of a revered predecessor, and that his forgeries are remarkably model-free.
 
Seeing the (rather crass) character of the duped owner destroying the piece, I felt a pang - not "original", maybe, but still a piece of art, that painting ought not have been destroyed.