The Art Forger Who Became a National Hero

In July of 1945, Han van Meegeren picked up his badger-hair brush and began to paint his last forgery. Over a decade, the wiry Dutchman had surreptitiously become Europe’s premier conman — a disgruntled artist-turned-forger who’d sold his works for tens of millions of dollars. Fueled by rejection from the art world, he had duped leading critics, wealthy collectors, and even a high-ranking Nazi official into believing his works were real. What’s more, he had chosen to do so by emulating the works of Jan Vermeer, a technically-immaculate master of the Dutch Golden Age. But post-World War II, a “Vermeer” painting sold to Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring was traced back to van Meegeren — a painting of such high quality that experts agreed no one could have possibly fabricated it. Accused of plundering for the Germans, the artist was sentenced to death. In an odd twist, van Meegeren was given one last chance to prove his innocence: If he could produce a brilliant forgery before the eyes of court-appointed witnesses, he’d be spared. What ensued would make the man one of the most popular figures in the Netherlands. This is the story of Han Van Meegeren, the most dramatic forger of the 20th century. Life as a Legitimate Painter Han van Meegeren was born on October 10, 1889 in a small Netherlands community just outside of Deventer. From an early age, van Meegeren’s father, a history teacher, strictly discouraged him from any creative pursuits: When the man caught his son drawing or exploring art, he’d force him to write “I know nothing, I am nothing, I am capable of nothing” hundreds of times on a sheet of paper. As a young student, van Meegeren’s talents were nonetheless recognized, and he received moral support from his educators. One of them, Bartus Korteling, had taken a fascination with the work of Johannes Vermeer (one of the great painters of the Dutch Golden Age); he copiously deconstructed the man’s work for van Meegeran, showing the boy how to “manufacture and mix colors” and emulate the aged style. Korteling also instilled in van Meegeran a belief that the modern Impressionist movement was “degenerate art” and that the masterworks were of unparalleled artistic quality. Meanwhile, van Meegeren’s father continued to decry the merits of art and placed his son in an architecture program. Unbeknownst to the man, his son pursued art classes at the school instead, all the while keeping up with his architecture coursework. Upon graduating, van Meegeren had a brief tenure designing buildings, but soon went against his father’s wishes and attended art school. Here, he won numerous prestigious awards, and was recognized as one of the premier young artists in the country. *** In 1915, van Meegeren wed, had a child, and assumed a teaching position at the Netherland’s Royal Academy of Art. His monthly salary, a measly 75 guldens (about $800 in 2014 purchasing power), afforded the family very little; to supplement his income, he sold his sketches — generally landscapes, portraits, and Christmas scenes — at local art markets. Serendipitously, this work caught the attention of a local elite art society, and he was soon producing sketches for Dutch royalty. Van Meegeren saw the peak of his original artwork career in 1921, when he drew Princess Juliana’s Deer (Hertje; pictured above).  The sketch was subsequently printed by the thousands and became unanimous with Netherlands artwork (it was once said that the print hung in one in five households in Holland). The artist traveled around Europe as a portrait artist, racking up stately sums from the elite upper class, but his journeys came with temptations. After several bouts of infidelity, van Meegeren’s wife filed for a divorce, and the artist embarked on the next phase of his career. The Art of Forgery Van Meegeren’s art supplies By the mid-1920s, Han van Meegeren had established himself in the Netherlands art scene, but critics soon noted his limitations, penning him as nothing more than an “imitator” of Golden Age artists. “He is a gifted technician who has made a sort of composite facsimile of the Renaissance school,” wrote one pundit. “He has every virtue except originality.” The highly-sensitive van Meegeren took offense to these comments and published a series of defensive, hostile tirades against the modern art community in a self-published journal. In doing so, he fell out of favor with critics. With the resounding declaration by critics that he was limited, van Meegeren set out on a mission to prove that he could “not only copy the style of the Dutch masters in his paintings, but produce a work of art so magnificent that it would rival the works of master painters.” He moved to the South of France, holed up in a small studio, and devoted himself to improving his craft. Next on van Meegeren’s agenda was to select a famous artist to forge. He contemplated many of the great Dutch painters (Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, and Gerard ter Borch), but ultimately settled on Johannes Vermeer — an artist many considered among the most difficult to emulate. “Vermeer was just about the greatest brand name of them all,” Edward Dolnick, author of the Forger’s Spell explains. “If you can get away with Vermeer, that shows how terrific you are — and it’s where the money is.” Vermeer worked slowly, integrated unique, expensive pigments (lapis lazuli and Indian yellow), and was renowned for his understanding and treatment of light. He had also only produced 35 verified paintings over his lifetime (most famously, Girl with the Pearl Earring; 1665), leading art historians to question where the others were. It would take a tremendous feat to forge Vermeer’s work, but the disgruntled van Meegeren was out to prove his worth. Vermeer’s masterpiece, Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) For six years — from 1932 to 1937 — van Meegeren voraciously studied the work and life of Vermeer, reading up on his techniques, colorations, brush strokes, and even personal affairs, with the ultimate goal of duping the art world that had denigrated him. Recreating Vermeer’s style proved incredibly difficult. Van Meegeren purchased original 17th century canvas, crafted his own paints from raw materials (just as Vermeer had done), and spent months perfecting the shades of yellow, blue, indigo, and white lead used by the Golden Age painter; In lieu of modern tools, he meticulously constructed his own paint brushes from badger hair — just as the 17th century masters had done. Another dilemma faced by van Meegeren was emulating the age of the paint. Oil paints take decades to fully dry and harden; he had to find a way to make two-month-old paint seem as if it were three centuries old. Van Meegeren purchased a pizza oven and experimented by shoving his imitation paintings inside — but time after time, the paints would just burn or melt. He soon refined this process: First, he’d mix his paints with phenol formaldehyde and melt plastic to harden them; he’d then bake the completed painting at 212-248 °F, roll it with a baking pin to crackle it, and wash it through a cycle of India ink to emulate patina. It was an ingenious system — perhaps the best ever devised by a forger — and it produced incredibly convincing paintings. Nearly all of Vermeer’s 35 known works were set in the same house with the same “furniture and decorations,” most of which portrayed the same people (usually a woman). At first, van Meegeren focused on producing paintings that were consistent with Vermeer’s limited themes, but he soon learned a valuable lesson, as art historian Edward Dolnick recounts: “He learned that if you come close to getting an imitation just right, the closer you come, the more convincing people find it. But if you get super close, people examine it more intricately and focus on the last little gap that keeps it from being real.” Observing these failures from other forgers who’d been caught, van Meegeren began to take risks. Instead of holding steadfast to Vermeer’s previous themes, van Meegeren set out to paint very different scenes while still maintaining Vermeer’s artistic signatures. Most critics at the time agreed that there were at least 15 Vermeers (in addition to the 35 proven to be real) that had been lost with time; this provided van Meegeren’s fakes with a plausible backstory. The $35,000,000 Fakes The Supper at Emmaus (Han van Meegeren’s forgery, 1937) Though van Meegeren had acquired the skills to produce Vermeer forgeries, he had no knowledge of how to sell them. By chance, he met Theo van Wijngaarden, a shady art restorationist who’d purchase cheap pictures, move them to contacts in other European countries, and sell them at a massive profit. With his network of “well-placed accomplices,” Van Wijngaarden had operated since the turn of the century without detection, but lacked the talent to produce the artworks himself. The two agreed to join forces just as van Meegeren completed his first master forgery. During his studies, van Meegeran had learned that Vermeer greatly appreciated the work of Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, though he’d never created a work inspired by it. Throughout 1936 and 1937, Van Meegeren analyzed the Italian’s best known work, “Supper at Emmaus,” then went about replicating it in the style of Vermeer, complete with affectations: “Wormholes, yellowed varnish, soilage, and, for good measure, a poorly repaired rip.” He titled the work with the same name — “Supper at Emmaus” — and went about peddling it to the art world. Via Van Wijngaarden put the artist in touch with Gerald A. Boon, a gullible parliamentarian with an interest in artwork, and proceeded to convince him that the painting was a real Vermeer. His backstory was convincing: The painting had “belonged to a Dutch family living in Italy, who, persecuted by the Fascist authorities, desperately needed funds for an escape to America.”