Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing Turner Prize-winning potter, has become the latest artist to fall victim to forgers.

An embarassed Christie’s has been forced to withdraw a glazed ceramic sculpture of a boar from auction tomorrow after the artist told them that he had not made it. He said that it had to be a fake because it was too well made to be one of his early works.

The piece has been reattributed as “English school”, reduced in value and returned to the anonymous seller.

The discovery follows the recent appearance at auction houses in London of works purporting to be by Damien Hirst and Peter Howson.

Forgery is an international concern. In New York yesterday it was reported that several disputed Jackson Pollock drip paintings had been quietly sold before they were fully authenticated.

Perry, 47, who describes wearing female dress as “a compulsion”, has become one of the most recognisable figures in the British arts world since winning the Turner Prize in 2003.

His pots can now sell for more than £50,000 and are often the vehicle for subversive political comments, satirical observations and autobiographical anecdotes. Sex, violence and childhood motifs loom large in his work. He said that he was “slightly insulted” that someone felt able to reproduce his style, but also flattered at such a “dubious honour”.

Christie’s said in a statement that it devoted “considerable resources to investigating the provenance of all objects we offer for sale”. This did not extend to approaching Perry or his gallery, the Victoria Miro in East London.

Perry, who writes a column for for The Times, describes to-day how his wife spotted the fake in the catalogue for an auction of postwar and contemporary art. The figure, playfully titled The Children’s Bore and given an estimated price of £4,000-£6,000, was inscribed with text “on the theme of a nagging parent saying such things as ‘sit still, keep quiet’ and ‘take the hair out of your eyes’ ”, he said.

At first the artist was taken in by the plausible use of text and the “socio-psychological theme”, both typical of his work. “I thought maybe I had made it and blanked it from my memory. Then I realised that it was too well made for an early work of mine and sculpted by someone who, I suspect, was more conventionally trained in ceramics. My early works are lively but technically inept.”

What neither the artist nor the auctioneer has been able to explain is the similarity between The Children’s Bore and a very rarely seen ceramic boar that Perry made when he was learning pottery in 1983.

Perry said: “I sold the piece to a friend who was my very first collector. Rather sweetly, a few years ago he gave the piece back to me as he was a little ashamed of how badly he had looked after it. Very few people would have seen this artwork, and I have rarely shown an image of it in a lecture, so I am wondering: was it made by a fellow evening-class student or a potter who had come to hear me speak?”

There have always been forgers but in recent years more fakes of work by living artists have started to appear.

In October Sotheby’s withdrew three “Hirst” spot prints ten days before they were due for auction. In 2005, Peter Howson, told Christie’s and Bon-ham’s that they were each offering paintings in his name that he had not made.

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