TOKYO, September 10, 2008 (AFP) - A Japanese museum is pulling three oil paintings attributed to Franco-Russian avant-garde painter Marc Chagall after claims they are forgeries, an official said Wednesday.

The Bunkamura Museum of Art in Tokyo was informed by the Paris-based Marc Chagall Committee that the three works were not genuine because the painting techniques were dubious, said museum spokesman Masao Kotani.

The paintings -- 'Portrait of a Woman' (1908), 'Family' (1911-1912) and 'Fiddler' (1917) -- were lent by the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, which insisted the paintings were real, he said.

'We are going to leave it to the two of them to discuss the paintings' authenticity,' Kotani said.

The paintings were part of an exhibition at the Tokyo museum that ran for two months until August.

The Suntory Museum in Osaka, which was slated to begin a similar exhibition later this month, will withdraw the three paintings, Kotani said.

Chagall (1887-1985) spearheaded modernist art, producing colourful and often heavily symbolic paintings that were heavily inspired by his Jewish heritage.

He was born in modern-day Belarus and lived in Russia but fled anti-Semitism to live in Paris.