The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han Van MeegerenHoughton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009 - 352 pages NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, THE LAST VERMEER, STARRING GUY PEARCE: A revelatory biography of the world's most famous forger--a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush--and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world. It's a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: A lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering in mockery of the Nazis. And it's a story that's been believed ever since. Too bad it isn't true. Jonathan Lopez has drawn on never-before-seen documents from dozens of archives for this long-overdue unvarnishing of Van Meegeren's legend. Neither unappreciated artist nor antifascist hero, Van Meegeren emerges as an ingenious, dyed-in-the-wool crook. Lopez explores a network of illicit commerce that operated across Europe: Not only was Van Meegeren a key player in that high-stakes game in the 1920s and '30s, landing fakes with famous collectors such as Andrew Mellon, but he and his associates later cashed in on the Nazi occupation. |
Contents
1 | |
1 The Collaborator | 11 |
2 Beautiful Nonsense | 21 |
3 The Sphinx of Delft | 52 |
4 Smoke and Mirrors | 72 |
5 A Happy Hunting Ground | 100 |
6 The Master Forger and the Fascist Dream | 124 |
7 Sieg Heil | 143 |
8 Goering Gets a Vermeer | 166 |
9 The Endgame | 186 |
10 Swept Under the Rug | 221 |
Framing the Fake | 243 |
Back Matter | 249 |
Back Cover | 341 |
Spine | 342 |