• This Issue
• Dress for Diana
• Subscribe
• Advertisers
• Ad FAQS
• Ad Web Sites
• About IAT
• Link to IAT

I was Vermeer

Hans van Meegeren was the mastermind behind a famous fraud. Like Victor Lustig the name is not as famous as the crime; Lustig defrauded Al Capone. Van Meegeren's victim was Hermann Goering, Commander of the Luftwaffe in Nazi Germany.

Van Meegeren was his own worst enemy. Ultra sensitive to criticism yet he cuckolded one of the most famous Dutch art critics. Then he couldn't understand why his second major exhibition was poorly received. It could not be payback for his transgression; stealing another man's wife, not just any man, but the foremost art critic of the time.

Perhaps van Meegeren began his forgery ostensibly to prove the critics wrong. That may or may not be true. It's an easy way to explain what he did. His success was phenomenal. Wynne effectively illustrates the sheer impossibility of the task. Painting an image in the style of Johannes Vermeer wasn't difficult van Meergeren could have done that in his sleep. It was the chemistry that would prove his failing or his greatest triumph. If he could convince the critics and scientists that the art work was created in the 17th Century his success would be complete.  This is the heart of I was Vermeer the trial and effort to learn what the critics would look for and give it to them. He convinced some of the foremost art historians that his forgeries could only be the works of Vermeer. It was a stunning achievement.

Van Meergeren was able to keep up his deceit for years. It came back to haunt him in an unusual way. One of the last forgeries he sold ended up in the collection of Herman Goring. Colluding with the enemy very nearly cost van Meergeren his life as a Dutch traitor. His solution was simple, he proved he was a forger, not a criminal, by painting for his life. In captivity he creating a masterwork proving he wasn't a war criminal but a national hero; the man who swindled Herman Goring.