Word: meegeren
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Dates: during 1945-1945
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When one Hans van Meegeren, a little-known Dutch Nazi painter, owned to forging seven recently "discovered" Vermeers (TIME, July 30), art experts laughed him off as a nut. They had reason to: the masterpieces had been painstakingly authenticated by them, by chemical, X-ray and infra-red tests...
Last week, while awaiting trial in an Amsterdam jail (for collaboration with the Nazis), van Meegeren was under close watch by the art experts themselves, whose own prestige was involved. To their amusement, then to their stupefaction, he was painting another "Vermeer...
...final proof, said the Dutch, the faked Vermeer Christ and the Disciples in Boyman's Museum at Rotterdam shows Christ seated in a chair which was copied from a chair in van Meegeren's studio...
...Meegeren had been suspected of faking as far back as 1937 (a "Frans Hals," sold to a U.S. buyer, proved to have been fastened to its stretcher with modern thumbtacks). He really hit his stride when the Nazis came in; he sent the Führer a portfolio of reproductions of his work, obsequiously dedicated, and slyly passed off a phony on Goring. From the profits of his "discovered Vermeers" he moved into an Amsterdam mansion...
When he made his confession, Van Meegeren was in jail awaiting trial as a collaborator. He is still there, and the full details of his sensational story are still to be checked. One official of the Rotterdam Museum has a theory of his own: Van Meegeren may be a muddy-minded fantast with a grudge against museums. Some Dutch art experts, who stand to lose considerable prestige over the affair, just plain don't believe a word of Van Meegeren's story...