ART EXPERTS HOAXED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25306, 4 October 1947, Page 3

ART EXPERTS HOAXED

Alleged Forgery Of Old Masters SALES OF PAINTINGS BY DUTCH ARTIST What promises to be one of the most sensational trials in the long history of art disputes opened a few days ago in Amsterdam, where Hans van Meexgeren, a 58-year-old Dutch painter, was charged with defrauding the Netherlands Government and a number of overseas buyers by selling them paintings which purported to be the work of Vermeer and of Pieter de Hooch. The sums involved in the sale and resale of the paintings, which ware accepted by experts as genuine old masters, ran into millions of pounds. It is alleged that the Dutch State has been swindled out of enormous amounts. Goering purchased one of van Meegeren’s “Vermeers” for 1.650,000 guilders. Van Meegeren claims to have made about £600,000

out of the paintings. Van Meegeren is not the ordinary art forger; his skill amounts to genius. His “Vermeers” are new creations, not copies of existing masterpieces. As his successions! “Vermeers’’ was dis-

covered. usually in romantic circumstances, they accorded perfectly with what a discovery should be: new and unknown in composition, familiar in technique and colour combination. It was the quantity, not the quality, of “discovered” masters thaf*aroused suspicion. Van Meegeren’s Revenge Van Meegeren was born at Deventer., He abandoned a career in architectural engineering to study' painting. The turning point in his life which aroused his unquenchable hatred of art connoisseurs came when he was proposed as chairman of the Art Circle in The Hague in 1932. but was not elected. He settled at Roquebrune, in the south of France. Embittered by lack 'of recognition for his work, van Meegeren determined to wreak revenge on art critics and experts. He made a close study of Vermeer’s paintings, studied the materials used in them, and evolved technical processes identical with those employed by the seventeenthcentury master. About 1934 he bought in Amsterdam an oil painting by an unknown seventeenth-century artist. From this canvas he cut a strip about 30 centimetres wide, to reduce it to the size he wanted. After he had removed the white of lead with soda, he set about painting the “Emmausgangers,” which Wfts eventually sold to the Dutch State for 1,250,000 guilders as a genuine Vermeer. Van Meegeren

took special pains to give the canvas the craquelure and signature. Dr. Abraham Bredius, the famous Dutch art expert, certified to the genuiness of the painting. Succession of “Discoveries” In 1939, van Meegeren decided to try his hand at another DTttch master—

Pieter de Hooch. He considered this necessary because in disposing of the “Emmausgangers” he had given out that the painting was part of an old Italian collection. After buying an old canvas in Paris, he painted on it an interior in, the manner of de Hooch. The painting is said to have been sold for 200,000 guilders.. From then on. painting after painting appeared on the market, but they were always “Vermeers.” In May. 1945, investigators belonging to the Allied forces in Germany found among Goering’s art treasures an oil, “Christ and the Adultress.” purporting to be a Vermeer. Inquiries into the manner in which the painting had been acquired by Goering led investigators to van Meegeren in Amsterdam. By this time, van Meegeren had sold six “Vermeers.” five of them to collectors and museums in The Hague. Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. The sixth was “Christ and the Adultress.’ Under questioning, van Meegeren confessed to the painting of the six “Vermeers.” His confession led to widespread controversy among art experts, who contended that the works, once adjudged genuine, were still authentic masterpieces. Jury of Art Experts

Van Meegeren was asked to paint a new work in the manner of Vermeer, and about 18 months ago he began the task. He produced a painting of the Child Christ in the Temple of the Elders, in absolute conformity with the style of the master. The Dutch authorities appointed a jury of international art experts to study it. Together with van Meegeren’s six other “Vermeers,” it was placed in a special gallery in Amsterdam, and there the controversy went on. Experts say that the van Meegeren case places a doubt upon the acquisitions of many famous collections. Van Meegeren’s supporters contend that if his “Vermeers” 'were passed upon and bought as originals, then he is a genius in his own right They remind his

critics that he did not copy a single masterpiece, but rather created new masterpieces in the manner and style of the old masters. •