Julian Crowley
1. Han van Meegeren
Vermeer Forgery
Han van Meegeren was another painter who turned to forgery when his own work was scorned by critics. Hugely talented, he was arrested by the Dutch government during WWII for collaboration with the Nazis, as he was held to have sold a Vermeer to Hermann Göring. He confessed to forgery as this was a lesser crime than treason. His forgeries were so accomplished that he had to paint a Vermeer before experts to prove his talent and thus his innocence.
Image of trial
He died in 1947, the same year that an opinion poll named him the second most popular person in the whole nation – the Dutch people admiring his cunning in fooling both art experts and the Nazis. His paintings sold for such high prices that his own son was later found to have forged his father’s work and sold them as “genuine” van Meegeren forgeries.
