The forger's spell A true story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the greatest art hoax of the twentieth century

Review by New York Times Review

Hans van Meegeren painted his last "Vermeer" in police custody. IN the late 1930s and early '40s, a middling Dutch painter of old-fashioned taste, Han van Meegeren, made several pictures in the style of Vermeer (1632-75), with the object of passing them off as originals. It was a smart choice - only a tiny number of Vermeers (three dozen) were thought to exist, and the passion among collectors to own one was intense. But still, why should any artist want to hide his own name and talent behind that of another? Why, that is, become a forger? These are questions Edward Dolnick tries to answer in "The Forger's Spell." Van Meegeren, Dolnick suggests, was motivated quite simply by the prospect of making money. Later on, after he was unmasked, he offered other explanations - principally, a desire to revenge himself on art critics who had scorned the pictures he made in his own style. His critics did not share his own high opinion of his work; they thought he possessed the talent of a magazine illustrator. He had, Dolnick says, "a taste for the cloyingly sweet or the creepily erotic," hardly the basis for the making of masterpieces. But while "Van Meegerens" flopped, his forgeries met with immense success. They fooled practically all the Vermeer experts and sold for gigantic sums: in total, about $30 million in today's money. And notably, among his gullible customers was Hitler's deputy, Hermann Goering. For seven years, between 1938 and 1945, van Meegeren's principal forgery, "Christ at Emmaus," was more famous than any original Vermeer. The fact that it was a fake was discovered by an odd turn of events. After the war, van Meegeren was investigated by the police for the hugely serious crime of disposing of priceless Vermeers to the Nazis. To defend himself against the charge, he admitted to the offense of forgery - and painted another fake while in police captivity, just to prove it. Far from collaborating with Holland's invaders, he had hoodwinked one of their leaders, he insisted, thus casting himself as a somewhat unusual hero, the perpetrator of an unconventional kind of economic warfare against the Third Reich. Goering had boasted, "I intend to plunder, and to do it thoroughly." Who in Holland could object to the plundering of a plunderer? Yet while the truth saved van Meegeren from a conviction for treason, which carried the death penalty, it did not save him from a conviction for fraud. He was given a one-year jail sentence but died of heart disease, at age 58, before he was able to serve any time. He became known as "the man who swindled Goering." Dolnick, the author of "The Rescue Artist," about the theft of Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream," tells his story engagingly and with a light touch. He has a novelist's talent for characterization, and he raises fascinating questions. How, for instance, could the forgeries have fooled anyone? (Dolnick says that van Meegeren was "perhaps the only forger whose most famous works a layman would immediately identify as fake") How do forgers set about doing their work? One chapter is titled "Forgery 101"; it contains instructions from which any prospective forger would benefit. And why does our estimation of a work of art change when we discover it is a fake? Forgery is interesting in part because it demands great, if imitative, skill, and in part because copying itself has become a significant aspect of contemporary artmaking. It is an art-crime that encourages reflections on the nature of art itself. This book is an aid to such reflections. Anthony Julius is a lawyer in London and the author of "T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]

---

Review by Booklist Review

How we love stories of audacious con artists, and doesn't Dolnick love to tell the tales. His art-theft chronicle, The Rescue Artist (2005), won an Edgar Award, and now he vividly portrays a staggeringly successful Dutch art forger. Han van Meegeren was a dreadful painter, and yet he managed to fake Vermeer, the most sublime of artists. Between 1938 and 1945, when Van Meegeren was caught, his Christ at Emmaus was the most famous and the most admired Vermeer in the world. Van Meegeren's Vermeers are actually hideous and trite, yet this dapper, cunning, and patient man bamboozled top critics and museum directors and swindled the world's most monstrous collector, the Nazi Hermann Göring. How to explain this mass delusion, the forger's spell ? Dolnick covers it all, from Van Meegeren's technical brilliance to his shrewd choice of subject matter to his extraordinary manipulation of egos and perceptions. Dolnick's zesty, incisive, and entertaining inquiry illuminates the hidden dimensions and explicates the far-reaching implications of this fascinating and provocative collision of art and ambition, deception and war.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Starred Review. Edgar-winner Dolnick (The Rescue Artist) delves into the extraordinary story of Han van Meegeren (1889-1947), who made a fortune in German-occupied Holland by forging paintings of the 17th-century Dutch painter Vermeer. The discovery of a new Vermeer was just what the beleaguered Dutch needed to lift their spirits, and van Meegeren's Christ at Emmaus had already been bought by the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam in 1937 for $2.6 million. Collectors, critics and the public were blind to the clumsiness of this work and five other Vermeers done by van Meegeren. Dolnick asks how everyone could have been fooled, and he answers with a fascinating analysis of the forger's technique and a perceptive discussion of van Meegeren's genius at manipulating people. Van Meegeren was unmasked in 1945 by one of his clients, Hermann Goering. Later accused of treason for collaboration, he saved himself from execution and even became a hero for having swindled Goering. Dolnick's compelling look at how a forger worked his magic leads to one sad conclusion: there will always be eager victims waiting to be duped. Illus. not seen by PW. (June 24) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by Library Journal Review

In 1945, just after the end of World War II in Europe, a Dutch detective looking for artwork looted by the Nazis and for Nazi collaborators questioned a high-living Dutch artist named Han van Meegeren. Had van Meegeren, the detective inquired, been involved in the sale to Hermann G^ring of a priceless Vermeer painting? Upon further questioning, van Meegeren confessed that he had painted this Vermeer himself, along with other Vermeers then in the collections of several major Dutch art museums, and so began the unraveling of "the greatest art hoax of the twentieth century." While other books--including Frank Wynne's I Was Vermeer and Lord Kilbracken's Van Meegeren: Master Forger--have covered this intriguing case of forgery, greed, and detection, this account by Dolnick, author of the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist, is especially strong in plot development and characterization. It also has a unique point of view: that van Meegeren was not a genius and master forger but rather his "true distinction was [that] he is perhaps the only forger whose most famous works a layman would immediately identify as fake." Recommended for public and academic library art and true-crime collections. (Illustrations not seen.)--Marcia Welsh, Dartmouth Coll. Libs., Hanover, NH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Review by Kirkus Book Review

Mesmerizing account of an amateur artist who made millions selling forged paintings to art-obsessed Nazis and business tycoons. Veteran science journalist Dolnick (The Rescue Artist: The True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece, 2005, etc.) brings his expertise in art theft, criminal psychology and military history to a scintillating portrait of Dutch painter Han van Meegeren (1889-1947). Humiliated by critics who dismissed his work as lackluster, Van Meegeren turned to cunningly crafting paintings that he peddled during the 1930s and '40s as the work of revered 17th-century master Johannes Vermeer. The polished, fast-paced narrative captures the surreal mood in Nazi-occupied Holland. As German forces killed more than 70 percent of the Jewish population, the highest toll in Europe, Hitler and his leading aide, Hermann Goering, pillaged museums and private homes for paintings, sculpture and jewelry. In a rivalry Dolnick likens to a perverse schoolyard competition, the men also vied for treasures from art dealers enticed by the Nazis' looted cash. Enter Van Meegeren, a disaffected artist who watched with glee as the same critics who had ridiculed his original work swooned over the technically competent but off-kilter compositions he sold for princely sums as "lost Vermeers." In compelling prose, Dolnick details the doctored canvases, phony paint and fake bills of sale Van Meegeren painstakingly created to achieve his grand deceit. In addition to Nazis and wealthy Europeans, the author notes, he also duped affluent Americans such as Andrew Mellon. After a high-profile 1947 trial during which the con artist demonstrated his techniques, the Dutch government found Van Meegeren guilty of forgery and fraud. He died less than two months later, before serving his one-year prison sentence. Energetic and authoritative. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

---

The Forger's Spell A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century Chapter One A Knock On The Door Amsterdam May 1945 Until almost the very end, Han van Meegeren thought he had committed the perfect crime. He had pocketed more than $3 million--the equivalent of about $30 million today--and scarcely a trace of scandal clung to his name. Why should it, when his dupes never even knew that someone had played them for fools and taken them for a fortune? Even now, with two uniformed strangers at his door saying something about an investigation, he thought he might get away with it. The two men seemed polite, not belligerent. No doubt they had been impressed by the grandeur of 321 Keizersgracht. Maybe they really did have only a few routine questions to sort out. Van Meegeren decided to keep his secrets to himself. Van Meegeren was a small, dapper man of fifty-five with a tidy mustache and gray hair swept back from his forehead. His house was one of the most luxurious in Amsterdam, on one of the city's poshest streets, a neighborhood of bankers and merchant kings. Imposing but not showy, in keeping with the Dutch style, the house rose four stories high and looked out on a postcard canal. Most impressive of all in space-starved Amsterdam, where every staircase rises as steeply as a ladder, the house was nearly as wide as it was tall. The front hall was tiled in marble, and envious rumors had it--falsely--that the hall was so big that guests at Van Meegeren's parties raced their bicycles around it. On the other hand, the rumors about indoor skating were true. Van Meegeren had found a way to convert his basement to an ice rink so that jaded partygoers could skate in style. Joop Piller, the lead investigator on this spring day, would not have been a guest at those parties. A Jew in Holland--and Holland lost a greater proportion of Jews in World War II than any other Western European nation--Piller had fought in the Dutch resistance from 1940 to 1945. In years to come, many would embellish their wartime credentials, but Piller was the real thing. His last mission had been to set up a network to rescue Allied pilots after the Battle of Arnhem and smuggle them to safety. Piller had only begun to learn about Van Meegeren. Holland in 1945 was short of everything but rumors, and Piller had picked up some of the gossip swirling around Amsterdam. Van Meegeren had friends in all the worst--which was to say, pro-German--circles; he was a painter and an art collector; he was a connoisseur of old masters and young women; he had lived in France and had won that country's national lottery. Skeptical by nature, Piller was inclined to wave all the talk aside. Still, it was easy to see why the rumors flew. What kind of artist lived like this? Rembrandt, perhaps, but Van Meegeren was no Rembrandt. He was, according to all that Piller had heard, a middling painter of old-fashioned taste and no special distinction. He was apparently an art dealer as well, but he seemed to have made no more of a splash as a dealer than as a painter. He supposedly had a taste for hookers and high living and a reputation as a host who never let a glass stay unfilled. Other tales hinted at a kind of self-indulgent posturing. He had brought his guitar to a friend's funeral because "it might get boring." The bare facts of the artist's biography, as Piller would begin to assemble them over the next few days, only deepened the mystery. Van Meegeren was a Dutchman born in the provincial town of Deventer. He had studied art and architecture in Delft, the hometown of the great Johannes Vermeer. He had won prizes for his art, but he was as out of tune with the current age as his favorite teacher, who had taught Van Meegeren to prepare his own paints like his predecessors of three centuries before. Despite the occasional triumph, Van Meegeren hardly seemed marked for greatness. In college he got his girlfriend pregnant, married her at twenty-two, and settled down uneasily near Delft. There he tried, without much success, to support his family with his art. Van Meegeren spent the 1920s in The Hague, where life improved. He gained a reputation as a playboy and a portrait painter whose skill was perfectly adequate but whose client list was positively dazzling. In 1932 (by this time, with a new wife), he left Holland for the French Riviera. In the small town of Roquebrune, he moved into a spacious and isolated villa perched high on a cliff above the sun-dappled Mediterranean. As the Great Depression strengthened its grip, Van Meegeren somehow continued to thrive. In 1937, after five years in Roquebrune, he moved to even more imposing quarters, purchasing a mansion with a dozen bedrooms and a vineyard in Nice. But at his first meeting with the little man in the big house, Piller knew only that Van Meegeren's name had turned up in the paperwork of a dodgy art dealer. And so, when Piller took out his notebook and posed the question that would set the whole complicated story in motion, he had suspicions but not much more. Tell me, Mr. Van Meegeren, he asked, how did you come to be involved in selling a Vermeer? The Forger's Spell A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century . Copyright © by Edward Dolnick. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Edward Dolnick All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

---