Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Han van Meegeren: Forgery as an Art Form

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ In 1946 after the conclusion of the Second World War, a Dutch man was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and plundering the Netherlands of some of its greatest artistic works.  During the trial, he came up with a defense that seemed to everyone to be preposterous, yet wound up being true.  Learn more about Han van Meegeren, the painter who duped the Nazis, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. -------------------------------- Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1945, after the conclusion of the Second World War, a Dutchman was accused of collaborating with the Nazis and plundering the Netherlands of some of its greatest artistic works. During the trial, he came up with a defense that seemed to everyone to be preposterous, yet it bound up being true. Learn more about Han von Miergerin, the painter who duped the Nazis and everyone else, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thuline podcast from NPR.

Henrikus Antonius Van Meegeren, casually known as Han, was born in the Netherlands in 1889. Despite a love of art and a desire to become an artist, he did not grow up in an artistic household. His father did everything he could to stop his son's artistic ambitions. When he went to university, he was forced to study a practical subject like architecture, not painting. While in high school, he had a teacher named Bartus Quarterling. Quarterling was an amateur painter and had a deep fascination with the Dutch Masters. In addition to being a devotee of the Dutch Masters, he also rejected the modern artistic movements at the time, such as impressionism. Quarterling managed to pass on to a young Han von Miergerin, his love of the Dutch Masters.

In addition to appreciating their style, he also taught him many of the techniques they used, including how they blended paint. Han eventually began a career as a painter. He had his first public exhibition in 1917 and began to earn a reputation. He did drawings that became quite famous in the Netherlands, but eventually focused on portraits. He developed a clientele from all around Europe of people who wanted portraits painted in the style of Dutch masters. Many of his other paintings were panned by Dutch art critics. The primary complaint was that his works were derivative and unoriginal. Most art critics were taken at that time by new art movements like surrealism and cubism.

It didn't look kindly on someone like Van Meegeren who tried to uphold the style of the classics. One critic made a rather biting comment when he wrote that Van Meegren was, quote, a gifted technician who has made a sort of composite facsimile of the Renaissance school. He has every virtue except originality, end quote. It was during this time that Han Van Meegeren took up another career. well, not another career per se, but a different focus for his artistic pursuits. He became an art forger. He already had a style similar to the Dutch masters,

so it was a small step to actually creating works that could be passed off as works done by the masters. He created forgeries of famous Dutch painters such as Peter de Hoek, Gerard Terborg, and Johannes Vermeer. His forgeries were good, but not great. It could probably fool an amateur art buyer, but not a true art expert. He wanted to prove all of the art critics wrong by creating the ultimate forgery. A forgery so good, people would think it was the real thing. The target of his project was Vermeer. Now, if you remember back to my episode on Vermeer, there are very few Vermeer paintings that still exist.

So in 1932, he moved to the south of France to begin work on his forgery masterpiece. He hunted down original 17th century canvases. He created his own paint using the same recipes that Vermeer did. He even created paintbrushes out of badger hair, which was the same type that Vermeer used. It wasn't enough to make a painting that looked like one that Vermeer would have made. He also needed to make the painting look 300 years old. He experimented with applying resins to the paint to make it look old, putting it in an oven to make it crack, and even applying a roller to it to make it look more distressed.

He spent six years mastering his forging technique. He created two paintings that were based on actual Vermeers. They were similar, but not identical. He never sold these and kept him in his possession. After returning from the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, he set to work creating his magnum opus. He purchased a 17th century Dutch painting called The Awakening of Lazarus, which he used as his canvas and went to work. The final product was called The Supper at Emmaus, which is taken from a story in the New Testament. Caravaggio had painted his own version, and it was believed that Vermeer may have traveled to Italy,

so this would be passed off as Vermeer's version of the same Bible story. After it was completed, he gave it to a friend and told him it was a real Vermeer and asked him to show it to Dr. Abraham Bredis, one of the most respected art historians in the world who happened to live in Monaco. Bredis examined the painting in September of 1937 and declared it to be a genuine Vermeer. Not only that, but it was Vermeer's masterpiece. He did no technical analysis on the painting. The painting was then purchased by the Rembrandt Society for what would be the equivalent of about

$4.5 million today. With the money, he moved to Nice and made more forgeries and made even more money. Suffice it to say, he became really rich off making forgeries of great Dutch masters. He moved back to the Netherlands in 1943 and at this point had a net worth of about $25 to $30 million in modern currency. So far, this is an interesting story, but even considering the art forgeries, this probably still wouldn't be episode worthy. What made it episode worthy happened in 1940.

One of Van Meegeren's agent sold one of his paintings called Christ with the Adulteris, which was passed off as a Vermeer. The painting was sold to a Nazi art dealer by the name of Alois Maitle. Maitle in turn sold the painting to the head of the German Luftwaffe, Field Marshal, Herman Goring. The painting was traded for 137 paintings that the Nazis had stolen. Gering wasn't what you would call an art expert. He was more of an enthusiastic amateur. And there weren't any real Vermeers to compare it with because,

they were all in storage for protection. After the war, Christ with the adulterist was found in assault cave in Austria by the Allied monument men who were tasked with recovering Nazi stolen art. They worked the chain of possession back to Maitle, who in turn sent them to Han von Miegeren. Van Miegrin was then arrested for collaborating with the enemy and for the plunder of Dutch cultural property. The penalty for collaboration was death. At this point, Han had quite the dilemma. He could either be accused of collaboration and be put up against a firing squad, or he could fess up to creating the forgery and maybe spend a year in prison. He picked door number two. In open court, he confessed to everything. He explained his process, how he made the paints,

and how we got old canvases. He spilled all the beans. He said on the witness stand, quote, the painting in Gering's hands is not as you assume a Vermeer of Delft, but a van meagarin. I painted the pitcher. Moreover, he spun it such that he made himself look like he was purposely trying to defraud the Nazis. There was one big problem. No one believed him. They figured he was just trying to save his life. Moreover, the previously mentioned Dr. Abraham Bredas and other art experts testified that it was in fact a real Vermeer, as were other paintings they had verified. None of the art experts wanted to admit that they had been had.

There was only one way out of this. Van Meegren had to prove that he could. created a Vermeer forgery by doing it in public for everyone to see. So from July to December, 1945, he did just that. He created a painting in the style of Vermeer called Young Christ in the Temple. He used the face of one of the witnesses observing him as one of the characters in the painting. His very public forgery proved his point, and he was acquitted of collaboration with the Nazis and released from custody in early 1946.

While he was clear of the major charge, he still had to deal with the charge of selling fake paintings. In 1947, his trial began. By this time, the art world had come to accept that his forgeries were, in fact, forgeries. Chemical analysis was done which detected the presence of the polymer that he put on the paintings to age them, a polymer that was only invented in the 20th century. On November 12, 1947, he was sentenced to a minimum of one year in prison. Just 14 days later, he suffered a heart attack, and a month later on on December 30th, he had a second heart attack, which was fatal.

After his death, his estate was auctioned off to compensate those he defrauded, but much of his wealth had been transferred to his ex-wife, who he claimed knew nothing of his crimes. Strangely enough, the attention that Han von Meegeren acquired from his trial made him famous and actually created a demand for his forged works of art. There were gallery shows of his forgeries, and several of his fakes are today hanging in art galleries like the Rieks Museum in Amsterdam. In the most ironic twist of all, people began to create Van Meegeren forgeries, including his own son. They were literally making fakes of fakes. Han Van Meegeren didn't collaborate with the Nazis, but he also wasn't a saint. Beyond the outright fraud he committed, he also had beliefs that were shockingly similar to Hitler's about art, which led to the suspicion of collaboration in the first place.

The stories he spun in his defense about purposely trying to trick Gering were also probably false. nonetheless, he did have a real talent, a talent that wasn't really recognized until after his death, and which only manifested itself by copying the styles of other artists. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Debel over at Podcast Addict. They write, Diverse, succinct, fascinating, superb.

Thanks, Debel. Also accepted as an answer would have been eclectic, concise, captivating, glorious. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you two can have it right on the show.