![]() ![]() So, under the vigilant eyes s of reporters and court-appointed witnesses, he repainted the forgery while a prisoner at the Headquarters of Military Command. But, to both his dismay and gratification, no one believed him. After a week in solitary confinement, he told his jailers that the painting was not a master- piece by Vermeer, just a forgery by van Meegeren. Han was then faced with a choice: Confess to forging the painting or spend the rest of his life in prison. On the assumption that he had sold a Dutch national treasure to the enemy during wartime, van Meegeren charged as a Nazi collaborator and thrown into jail. When the painting was discovered hidden in an Austrian salt mine after the war, it was traced back to Han. During the German occupation of the Netherlands, Han-he was also an art dealer-sold one of his Vermeer forgeries, Christ with the Adulteress, to a German banker, who then sold it to Hermann Goering, number two in Hitler's command. “But the most intriguing part of the van Meegeren story is how his success as a forger got him arrested as a war criminal. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |