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In November 1937, the world's greatest authority on Dutch Golden Age painting stood before an unknown canvas in Monaco and declared it the discovery of a lifetime. "Every inch a Vermeer," he wrote in The Burlington Magazine. It sold for half a million guilders and hung in a national museum for years as a treasured masterpiece.
The man who painted it mixed his pigments with Bakelite resin and baked the canvas in a purpose-built oven. His name was Han van Meegeren. He had earned money as a painter before building a profitable trade in falsely attributed old masters.
Bakelite
Van Meegeren hardened paint containing a synthetic resin associated with Bakelite, developed in 1907–1909. Resistance to a solvent test helped disguise recent manufacture; it did not establish a seventeenth-century origin.
13+
Paintings sold as Vermeer, de Hooch, and ter Borch. Total receipts exceeded seven million guilders.
1.65M
Guilders — paid in looted Dutch paintings taken from Jewish families.
1 yr
The crowd outside the courthouse cheered. He never served a day — dead within six weeks of the verdict.
The Evidence
The Perfect Forgery
Van Meegeren experimented in France before producing The Supper at Emmaus. He used authentic seventeenth-century canvases (stripped of their original paintings), genuine lapis lazuli from London, and pigments ground from historical recipes. Old canvases and lower layers were combined with recently painted and artificially aged surfaces. The age of the support did not establish the age of the image. Bredius endorsed the attribution, although later research reports that he initially had doubts.
Unable to Prove His Crime
Van Meegeren's 1945 admission challenged accepted attributions. He painted Jesus Among the Doctors under supervision to demonstrate his ability, while investigators tested the existing canvases. Bredius's celebrated authentication concerned Emmaus, not every disputed work. Belgian chemist Paul Coremans found Bakelite in the forgeries' paint layers. Bakelite was developed in 1907–1909. The case was closed.
The Swindle of the Century
The forged Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery passed from van Meegeren through Alois Miedl to Göring. Accounts distinguish the painter's roughly 1.65-million-guilder sale from Miedl's onward exchange involving 137 pictures. These were separate transactions in a wartime market shaped by confiscation and persecution; exposing the fake did not settle the ownership histories of the other works.
The Forger's Career
The Laboratory
Embittered by critical dismissal, van Meegeren moves to Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. Begins four years of chemical experiments: Bakelite binders, historical pigments, aged canvases, oven-baking techniques.
The Authentication
Abraham Bredius, who turns 82 that November, publishes his authentication of the Supper at Emmaus in The Burlington Magazine — "every inch a Vermeer." The acquisition is arranged at 520,000 guilders through Willem van der Vorm; the picture is presented at Museum Boymans in 1938 and enters its foundation in 1939.
The Occupation
Under German occupation, van Meegeren produces a series of wartime forgeries sold for millions of guilders. Total receipts exceed seven million. Christ with the Adulteress goes to Hermann Göring through dealer Alois Miedl. The reported 137-picture exchange was separate from the roughly 1.65M-guilder sale to the dealer.
The Arrest
Allied recovery operations expose Göring's collection and dealer records to investigation. Provenance trails lead to van Meegeren, arrested on charges of collaboration with the enemy — potentially punishable by death.
The Verdict
Found guilty of forgery and fraud and sentenced to one year. The sympathetic story of a man who deceived Göring persists. He dies of heart failure six weeks later, never having served a day.
Key Figures
Abraham Bredius
An influential Dutch art scholar, Bredius was 81 when first shown Emmaus and turned 82 in November 1937. His rapturous article in The Burlington Magazine — "every inch a Vermeer" — transformed a canvas baked in a purpose-built oven into a national treasure. He died in March 1946, after the confession became public; his final private belief is not securely established.
Hermann Göring
Reichsmarschall and art collector, Göring acquired the supposed Vermeer through Miedl in a transaction reported to involve 137 pictures, convinced he had acquired a Dutch national masterpiece. Investigators traced the supposed Vermeer back to its supplier after the war. Göring died in October 1946, after van Meegeren's public admission.
Every Inch a Vermeer
The forger's conviction coexisted with a sympathetic reputation for deceiving Göring. That story obscured the continuing profits and the intermediaries in a market shaped by persecution.
The forgeries still exist. The Washing of the Feet is in the Rijksmuseum. The Supper at Emmaus belongs to the Boijmans collection. Exhibition and storage status varies; the works can now be studied beside evidence of their manufacture.
What changed was a piece of knowledge. Whether that changes the paintings is the question van Meegeren left behind.
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Follow the forged paintings, the Nazi-era art trade and the forgery trial.