ARTIST'S WEALTH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 254, 26 October 1945, Page 5

ARTIST'S WEALTH

BOGUS OLD MASTERS Dutch Copyist Made More Than • £1,000, OCR) LONDON, Oct. 23. A Dutch painter, Hans van Meegeren, who astonished the world with his forgeries of famous paintings, has been freed of political charges, and is being hailed in Holland as a "misguided genius." Asked if he could reproduce Vermeer's "Christ at Emmaus," van Meegeren said that, if given 17th century canvas and the necessary chemical ingredients, "I can do better; I will paint another Vermeer." Art experts say he has done so. Last July van Meegeren amazed the world by confessing that he had produced a bogus series of 17th century paintings which had been ascribed to such great masters as Vermeer, Frans Hals, de Hooch, and Gerard Ter Borch. Collaboration Charges Arrested shortly after Amsterdam was liberated, on charges of having collaborated with the enemy, van Meegeren confessed in prison that he had forged at least seven Vermeers, among them the famous "Christ at Emmaus," for which the Municipal Museum at Rotterdam, after "discovering" it in Paris, paid £125,000. Critics throughout the world hailed it as one of the greatest Vermeers known. Fj*om all these paintings, van Meegeren made more than £1,000 - 000. Under the constant supervision of six witnesses, representing the Court of Public Prosecution, the military Government, the police, and the art world, van Meegeren, in two months and without models, painted "Jesus Preaching in the Art experts consider it a beautiful picture, strictly in accordance with Vermeers style and containing the famous and costly lapis lazuli, the Vermeer blue, which for centuries was thought lost. Van Meegeren, who is now free was cleared of political blame' although the dedication "To My Beloved Fuehrer," in a book of his cartoons, is still unexplained. However, he will be tried next May on a charge of having taken money under false pretences.