Han van Meegeren's Fake Vermeers

Published Aug 15, 2023, 7:00 AM

Dutch painter Han van Meegeren has often been described as a dapper man, with, quote, “a small, birdlike frame constantly aflutter, and irreverent sense of humor.” His life story is anything but small. It's not just about art; it's about deception, fortune, Bakelite, and … Nazis. And, it has an unexpected twist at the end. Welcome to a new season of forgery and forgers, here on Criminalia.

Executive Producers: Maria Trimarchi and Holly Frey
Producer & Editor: Casby Bias

Welcome to Criminalia, a production of shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.

Dutch artist and forger Han van Meegren has often been described as a dapper man with quote a small bird like frame, constantly a flutter, and an irreverent sense of humor. His life story is anything but small. It's not just about art. It's about deception, fortune, bake light and Nazis. We've heard his story called the greatest art hoax of the twentieth century, and it has an unexpected twist at the end. Welcome to a new season of forgery and forgers here on Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarky.

And I'm Holly Frye. As we've done in the past, we're going to beg your forgiveness upfront because there are a lot of Dutch words in this episode. We're doing best. We might get some wrong, but we're really trying with that. Andrikas Han von Megrin was born on October tenth, eighteen eighty nine, the third of five children to Augusta Luisa Henrietta Comps and Hendrikas Johannes von Megrin. They were a middle class family who lived in the small town of Deventer in the Netherlands, where his father was the local schoolmaster. As a kid, Han was inspired to be an artist, a legitimate artist. In spite of that dream, his father wanted him to be an architect, and in nineteen oh seven, Han was sent to study architecture at a technical college in Delft, which also happens to be the hometown of famous Dutch painter Johannes Vermier. Hold on to that name as though we can forget it. He is one of the main characters in Hans's story.

While studying in delf Han met an art student named Honadevout, and the two married in April of nineteen twelve. Their son, Jacques, was born in August later that same year. It's reported that Han was fairly good at architecture, but he left his studies in nineteen thirteen to follow his dream. He began taking classes at an art school in the Hague. Upon earning his diploma, he took teaching opportunities to support his family and worked as the assistant to a professor of drawing and art history at a university in one of the Haigu's eight districts. He also sold original paintings and drawings, as well as art in more commercial forms like posters and Christmas cards. In nineteen fifteen, Han and Anna welcomed a daughter named Pauline, who later became known as Ainez.

Two years later, Han had his first public art exhibition. It was held in the Hague and it was a success, a career success which allowed him into hag Sekunskring, the Art Circle of the Hague, an exclusive Dutch society of artists, architects, writers, musicians and designers. In nineteen twenty two, he drew Princess Juliana's pet Deer from the Royal Menagerie, which became one of his best known original works. He also began to regularly contribute articles to De Kampen, a monthly art magazine that opposed the growing progressive art movements. His second exhibition in nineteen twenty two also sold very well, although this time around his works got less than great reviews from critics. Han made most of his money from portrait commissions, and though some of his patrons did recognize the influence of the Dutch Old Masters in his work, critics started to say that his art was really not relevant in a world that was filled with trends like Cubism, surrealism, and modernism.

What sounds like a time of good fortune changed in nineteen twenty three. He and Anna divorced that July. Now mixing among elite crowds in some of Europe's most glamorous cities. Han's new life didn't really fit well with marriage and children, and his marriage suffered numerous infidelities. Anna and their two children moved to Paris, and they basically fall out of his story here but not completely.

The sale of his art alone could not support Han, particularly not in the refined manner that he was becoming accustomed to, and the critics who didn't like his paintings and called his art highly derivative were not helping his work to sell. Not all of his reviews called him stuck in the past, though that was the primary theme. Art critics C. H. De Bour praised him for quote his admirable, exact and conservative style. However, not long after receiving that praise, Han began an affair with de Boor's wife, the actress Johanna Erleiman's. In nineteen twenty eight, Han and Joe got married.

We know Han didn't start out as a forger, he was mostly known for his skills in portraiture. In an effort to improve those skills and also to supplement his income, he began copying works in the Dutch seventeenth century style, such as Woman Drinking in the style of Franz Halls. Also at this time he started copying Johannes Vermiir. While his fake of the well known piece called Christ and the Disciples at a Mouse wasn't his first Vermire knockoff, experts believe it is his pinnacle work. Vermire, a seventeenth century Dutch Boroque painter, is known for his famous works including Girl with a pearl earring and Girl reading a letter at an open window. His paintings primarily focus on daily life, allegorical scenes, and some city scapes.

Edward Dolnick, author of The Forger's Spell, has stated there were several reasons why Han, who had tried forging several Dutch painters, decided to make his career of Vermire. In a two thousand and eight interview with NPR, Dolnick explained that Vermire was quote just about the greatest brand name of them all in art. This is the equivalent of Rolls Royce or Tiffany. If you can get away with Vermire, that shows how terrific you are, and it's where the money is. Dolnick, like other experts, has also noted that Vermire's biography and cannon of work is more the size of a brochure than a book, and because we don't have a lot of information about him, the whole has left quote lots of elbow room to fill in the gaps as you saw fit because nobody knew what the real story was.

Han didn't make knockoffs, he didn't try to sell anyone a fake girl with a pearl earring. Instead, he created a new type of Vermire, one that relied on the fake narrative that the old Master had had an early religious period. And also why the style of these lost works differed a bit from well known Vermires, according to Dolnik, creating paintings that had hints of Vermire but weren't trying to be exact Zach replications of any known works by the famous artist is quote. What turned out to be a better strategy for Van Muergrin. He'd then let the experts fill in the gaps themselves, let them say aha, didn't. I always tell you that Vermier had much more to him than you thought. It's not all ladies reading letters. It's sometimes completely different paintings, like this new one we've just found.

So instead of forging variations of known works, which may or may not hold up against the originals, Han smartly chose to fake what could be mistaken for a style that had been overlooked in Vermir's catalog. His counterfeit work Christ and the Disciples at a Mouse is actually based on a composition of Italian Baroque style painter Caravaggio, and it was so well received that Han started focusing not just on Vermire fakes, but on biblical paintings. State's Dulnik quote. Now, the paintings didn't have to look like the Vermires that we know are authentic. They only had to look like the Vermir style that he had introduced into the accepted works. Had became so talented at faking Vermir that art experts could not tell which was genuine and which was of von Migrin, and he allowed those works to be sold to unknowing buyers who thought they were getting a newly discovered work of the old master.

It turned out forging Vermir was quite lucrative, mainly because his works were so scarce. It simply came down to supply and demand. There are only thirty six authentic Vermire's in existence. Compared to other painters at the time, that wasn't much. Rembrandt, for instance, had ten times as many.

The oil painting Christ and the Disciples at a Mouse, completed in nineteen thirty six, is considered to be the most renowned forgery in the world. It visually tells the Biblical story in which Christ reveals himself to several disciples after he has risen from the dead. In nineteen thirty seven, art historian and critic doctor Abraham Bredius, who had a track record of identifying newly found vermires, excitedly announced a new Vermire had been discovered and it was a sensation. Doctor Bredius was one of the leading art experts of the time, yet in spite of that expertise, he was convinced that the work Christ and the Disciples at a Mouse was a previously unknown, genuine early work of Johannes Vermire. With his stamp of approval, the painting was purchased with financial donations from the Rembrandt Society and a few other private collectors, who then donated the piece to the museum Boyman's von Guningen in Rotterdam in June of nineteen thirty eight. The painting became one of the museum's top attractions.

To Han, this meant he'd passed to the authenticity test and fooled those critics who negatively reviewed him. Doctor Bradhu's authored a piece in what was considered the Art Bible, the Burlington Magazine, declaring quote, it is a wonderful moment in the life of a lover of art when he finds himself suddenly confronted with a hitherto unknown painting by a great master, untouched on the original canvas and without any restoration, just as it left the painter's studio. And what a picture we have here, I am inclined to say, the masterpiece of Johannes vermir of Delf quite different from all his other paintings. And yet every inch of ver Mirror in no other picture by the great master. Do we find such sentiment, such a profound understanding of the Bible story, a sentiment so nobly human expressed through the medium of highest art. Doctor Bradius's opinion was infrequently questioned, and few in the art community ever doubted him.

We are going to take a break for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back we will talk about some of Hans's forgery techniques, and we'll talk about how the say of one of his paintings got him charged with treason.

Welcome back to Criminalia. Hans's career was cut short when he was arrested for selling one of his paintings to a Nazi leader. Let's talk about how that happened.

The fact that Han had turned to art forgery as a career didn't mean that he was a technically proficient artist. He was excellent in fact, to be a great forger. He continuously studied the lives and techniques of the old masters he faked, and he worked for years trying to perfect his craft, and that included mixing his own pains to ensure that only the pigments and oils that were in use in the work were period correct for the artist he was copying. To mimic the look and feel of old dried oil paint, he mixed a little bake light, which is an early form of plastic into those pigments. He created his own period correct brushes, using badger hair to replicate Vermeer's style. For instance, he also researched the canvases used by each artist and developed and used effects to age his paintings, techniques including kraculare, yellowed varnish, and soilage, and perhaps for extra authenticity, he applied a poorly repaired rip to the corner of Christ and the Disciples at a Mouse. He finished each painting with an application of resin, and he baked them in his oven. We came across one really great detail that the a Mouse painting was planned larger, but a larger canvas would not have fit in the oven. It's interesting because in becoming a forger, Han also had become an expert art historian of the artists he was impersonating.

After baking, the dried painting's easily past what was called the alcohol and needle test, which was the primary forensics test of this era. Art dealers would test a painting's authenticity by rubbing alcohol on the paint and then poking it with a hot needle. If the paint was new, it would puncture. Art buyers at the time didn't have today's technologies that would have discovered these materials were inaccurate. For instance, the resinu used in the aging process would not have been used on a genuine Dutch Old Master painting. Mostly, art experts were basing authenticity on what they saw rather than chemical analysis data, and Hans Vermier was flawless.

Hans's new wealth allowed him to live a very comfortable lifestyle and he bought himself a whopping fifty seven different properties. Among those properties was a twelve bedroom home in Nice, France, where he lived for about a year, practicing his forging techniques without interruption. While there, Han completed The Card Players as well as The Drinking Party, both of which are in the style of Peter de Roche. In nineteen thirty nine, one of his counterfeit, d Hoax, sold to an unknowing Daniel George von Buningen, a well known businessman, art collector and philanthropist who donated many works of art to the Museum Boyman's von Buningen in Rotterdam and yes, that is his surname in the name of the museum.

Han returned to the Netherlands, but there are differing versions of his return. One is that Han and his wife Joe settled in the small village of Lauren in nineteen thirty nine or two. The couple moved back to Amsterdam in December of nineteen forty three. Of course, either of these are plausible. Both could be true, maybe neither, but either way, it's around that time when we find Han back in the Netherlands and getting a divorce. As part of the settlement, most of his property and most of his money were transferred to his now ex wife Joe. Following the divorce, it's reported the pair continued to live together, and when it came to appearances, they still appeared to be a husband and wife.

Han sold millions of dollars worth of fakes to anyone and everyone, even to the government of the Netherlands, and for a while he got away with selling his forged art at astounding prices. But when one of von Miegern's paintings, thought to be an original vermir ended up in the collection of the high ranking Nazi officer Hermann Goering, Han was arrested for treason.

Hans's fame was never about how many old masters he copied, or even how good of an artist he was. It turned out. His fame was based on who was swindled into buying one of his phony Vermier's. Not long after Hitler's rise to power, Nazi reisch Marshall Hermann Gerring became a man of many titles, but above all of them, he was Hitler's designated successor. He was notoriously self indulgent and was known for flaunting his possessions, like jewelry and artwork, most stolen. Some not grig thought he had purchased a genuine Vermire from Nazi art dealer Aluis Needel, and he thought he'd gotten the good end of the deal when he'd exchanged one hundred and thirty seven looted paintings. Some reports suggest it was closer to one hundred and fifty or even as high as two hundred to acquire the rare work.

In one of those small world moments, meadl and Han knew each other. Meadel had been a banker, and when he moved from Munich to Amsterdam in nineteen thirty two, he got to know many of the prominent citizens in the city, including Han and his wife Joe. He was also an art dealer for the Nazi Party and for himself. Meadel will just say he obtained art through blackmail, coercion, and often confiscation. He also worked with artists and dealers such as Han to buy and sell works for notable collectors and other interested parties. Meetle obtained Hans's counterfeit Christ with the Adulteress in nineteen forty two. Ever since, no one has ever been able to successfully piece together. If Han knew that his forged works, ultimate destination would be Hermann Goering's country home, and no one is really sure how this painting got Gerring's attention. He had always wanted avermire, and when he finally had Christ with the adulteressts, he kept it on display at his estate in Karenhall, near Berlin. Modern experts have estimated that Gering's purchase of Christ with the Adulteress is very likely the most that anyone had paid for a piece of art at that point in time. Gering loved this piece and called it one of his most prized works in his collection. It is believed that he never learned that it was a fake.

We are going to take a break for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back, we're going to talk about Hans's trial for collaborating with Nazis and how he dodged execution by admitting to fraud.

Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how Hans Christ with the Adulteris painting got him sent to prison.

In nineteen forty five, at the end of the Second World War, Han was arrested for selling what was believed to be Dutch cultural property, the so called genuine Vermier, to the Nazi Party. Allied forces known as the Monument's Men had found Gouring's collection of art hidden and an Austrian salt mine. The monuments Men have come up on this show before. They were a group of experts that included art historians, artists, architects, curators, educators, librarians, museum directors, and they were all tasked with protecting, recovering, and returning artifacts that had been damaged or looted in the war. While taking inventory of the salt mine, they were surprised to find a previously unknown vermier, christ with the adulteress, and they all agreed it was authentic. It was Gurring's own inventory that allowed the Monument's Men to trace the painting from him to Meatle and then from Meetle to Han Van Megren. Gerring had turned out kept fastidious records, and as they all looked at the evidence, they concluded that Han had been assisting the Nazis in illegally acquiring art which was Dutch property, or at least so it appeared.

Authorities questioned Han about the origins of Christ with the adulteress. They also questioned whether he had illegally collaborated with the Nazis during their occupation of the Netherlands. Authorities also traveled to Spain to question a Lois Metle, but Meetel, unlike Han, had been given immunity from prosecution by spains Ferdinand Franco, he took the opportunity to share information implicating Han in the sale, information that was maybe true or maybe not. If investigators could prove Gering had illegally purchased the alleged Vermiir from Han, he would be executed as a Nazi collaborator who sold a Dutch masterpiece to Hitler's second in command. Four weeks after the liberation of Holland, on May twenty ninth, nineteen forty five, Han was arrested on charges of quote conspiracy with the enemy.

His trial was held in Room four of the Regional Court in Amsterdam. A silver haired Han appeared in court as a slim, tidy man in a blue serge suit. His forgeries hung on the walls of the courtroom. This was part of his defense. Among those in court was a group that included curators, art historians and professors who were asked to provide their art expertise in the case, led by doctor Paul B. Cormans, the director of a chemical laboratory at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium. Each expert witness was first asked to examine a number of works by Franz Haltz and by Johannes Vermier, works considered genuine, and then they were asked to examine Hans's works. After the examinations, doctor Corman's was able to determine the chemicals in the paintings, and he determined that the paints used by Han were mixed with twentieth century paint partners, specifically bake light, and the bottles were found in Hans's home. He'd corroborated Hans's story of forgery, but.

This wasn't open and shut. Despite that evidence, the court remained skeptical. Han, in an attempt to save himself from execution, confessed to his crime of forgery, saying he was quote driven into a state of anxiety and depression due to the all too meager appreciation of my work. I decided one fateful day to revenge myself on the art critics and experts by doing something the likes of which the world had never seen before. I was determined to prove my worth as a painter by making a perfect seventeenth century canvas. He also presented himself to the court as having wilfully defrauded Gering as an act of defiance against Nazi leaders. He exclaimed, you think I sold a priceless vermire to Gurring? That was no vermiir. I painted it myself. Hans claimed that he had sold Christ with the adulteress for a shockingly large sum of money in nineteen forty three. He also confessed to have painted five additional fake vermires, as well as two counterfeit works in the style of Peter de Hote.

The judge in reply skeptically asked him, quote, you do admit, though, that you sold these paintings for very high prices. Hans's answer was spot on quote. I could hardly have done otherwise. Had I sold them for low prices, it would have been obvious they were fake. I didn't do it for the money, which brought me nothing but trouble and unhappiness.

It was decided by the court that the best thing to do would be for Han to prove himself by forging another Vermier. So he brought his forgery process and all of his tools and supplies to the court. Under the watchful eyes of Dutch authorities, Han began his new piece Jesus among the doctors. He used a vintage canvas and showed the panel of experts how he mixed handmade pigments and mimicked Vermier's brushstrokes. Some reports suggest this process took months.

Our critics, who'd previously claimed Hans's forgeries as authentic, argued that he had to be lying about his counterfeits. None would admit they may have been wrong. This was also bad news for doctor Bradius, who worried about his long standing repute if word got out that he'd incorrectly identified a forged painting Christ and the Disciples at Emaus as genuine. His career would be over. The answer for him, too, would depend on this new forgery Han was creating.

During the trial, after the completion of Jesus among the doctors, and after an exhaustive examination by the group of art experts, the court was convinced Han was a highly competent forger of at the very least vermire. The demonstration saved him from the death penalty. He was instead sentenced to one year in prison for committing fraud. Some reports suggest he was also forced to relinquish his wealth, although you may recall a lot of his money had already gone to Joe in their divorce settlement, and authorities never charged Joe with any involvement in her husband's crimes. But there was for a period following his arrest speculation that their divorce settlement gave him away to legally protect his fortune from being seized by authorities.

With just two months served of his one year sentence, Han age fifty eight, died of a heart attack in prison in December of nineteen forty seven. His complete inventory of work, and in particular his canon of forgeries, is not yet settled. In fact, whether or not there was collaboration between Han and the Nazis is also still up for debate. We do know from his court records that he really did play up the idea that he'd outwitted the Nazis, and after his trial, his reputation grew as many people in the Netherlands considered him to be a hero for duping the Nazi Party. Opinion polls dating back to nineteen forty seven placed him as the second most popular of all Dutch people that year. The one person ahead of him the then Prime Minister. Han was the first twentieth century art forger to become a romanticized figure in the media, specifically for his ability to fool the infallible art experts around the world.

Han was a counterfeiter, sure, but he was one of legendary status. His work has been discovered in major art collections across the Western world, and it also took years for many of his paintings to be identified as fakes. That piece doctor Bradyhuse mistook as genuine. The museum Boymans von Buningen in Rotterdam openly displays Christ and the Disciples at a Mouse as its own famous mistake.

After his death, Han von Nigern paintings became valuable in their own right, and in an unexpected twist, his forged art, in turn, also became the subject of forgery, although he'd likely tell you it's of lower quality than the counterfeits he had once produced. Among the fakes, the best were forged by a man named Jacques van Nigrin. Yes, that is right. That is Han's son, who could sign his father's name perfectly. Fake Van Migrin's, both painted by Jack and by others, are still found out in today's market.

All right, Maria, Yes, we have.

A new season of drinks and mocktails.

We do, and I'm not going to tell you what it's called until the end, because this first one introduces the concept. Okay, I'm slightly terrified of what I've done for myself, but here we go.

Let's do this.

Go ahead and put together a small glass coffee cup or I used a small nick and Nora glass. Put it in your fridge, maybe put some ice in it. Put it in the fridge we're pre chilling. Then into your shaking tin. You are going to put three quarters of an ounce of lime, three quarters of an ounce of Demararis syrup, three ounces of pomegranate juice, a bar spoon of juice from like a cocktail cherry jar or cherry jar, and then an ounce and a half of cognac, and you're gonna shake that with ice, give it a nice good shake. You can go ahead and pour that into your pre chilled glass, and then very quickly, in a different container, you're going to put an ounce of egg white or the white from one egg into another receptacle, frothe with your frother, and then you're going to spoon it on top. If you look at this drink, what it looks like is an Irish coffee, but what it is is a delicious, fruity beverage. Because this entire season is based on the idea that we are making a drink that's easily visually recognizable, but making it out of things that are not that, so it tastes completely different. We're calling this season's cocktails bogus bevies, and this first one is just simply called fooled ya. Although I will say, again, as always with a raw egg situation, don't give it to somebody who's pregnant and who may be sensitive to it. Let them. Don't use this to trick your friends. If you think they might have a medical reason. That would be a bad idea. But yes, there will be more of these, and I'm scared because they will look like one beverage but in fact be another. I may five episodes in really be kicking myself with this idea, but I'm taking on the challenge. So it will normally be a beverage that is well known enough that most people would know what it looks like that we're mocking, but we're in fact making a forgery of it that is made with completely different things. This is a very easy one to do the mock tail on. Instead of that ounce and a half of cognac, you're gonna do an ounce of a black tea and a half ounce of a white grape juice, just to give it that kind of heft and body that a cognac has, and then you will make the rest of it the exact same way. This is if you look at it, you may be thinking that's a sweet drink, and it is, which makes it extra funny when you may think visually you're getting a coffee, because even though an Irish coffee does have the sweetness of the heavy cream on top, to my palette, it's not sweet at all compared to a fruit memory, So.

Yeah, it's not sweet to really at all.

And I will say this cocktail is delicious, like one of those things where you make it and then you sip and you go, wow, that's better than I expect it. There's something really nice about the lime and the palm and the cognac together that are not always things good that get put together, but they really do make quite a nice little symphony of flavor. This is our first Bogus bevy, and we'll see what happens the rest of the sea. Johannes vermir give me strength. I'm gonna eat it, but we hope you're along for the ride to see what I probably screw up along the way. We will be right back here next week with another story of forgery and another challenging to me. Drink. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

In 1 playlist(s)

  1. Criminalia

    246 clip(s)

Criminalia

Humans have always committed crimes. What can we learn from the criminals and crimes of the past, an 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 246 clip(s)