Failure™ Magazine

The Man Who Made Vermeers

The life and crimes of master forger Han van Meegeren.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Arts & Entertainment, History

Are there any museums or exhibitions devoted to forged paintings?
There’s a terrific museum of forgeries in Italy, Il Museo del Falso, that is part of the University of Salerno’s Center for the Study of Forgery. They collect only fakes and have everything from fake Renaissance masters to fake Andy Warhols.

There are also frequent exhibitions throughout the world. The best ones tend to focus on a single forger or group of forgers. There was an excellent exhibition in Belgium a few years ago on Jef van der Veken, who specialized in forging Van Eyck. And in 2004 there was a truly amazing show in Siena [“Icilio Federico Joni and the tradition of forgery in the 19th and 20th century”] that looked at Icilio Joni—the master of the fake Italian Primitives—as well as the circle of forgers working in Italy in his day.

Has technology made it more difficult to forge paintings today?
Technology has made it considerably easier to prove a picture fake, but generally speaking, by the time a forgery has raised enough questions to prompt scientific analysis, it has already been bought and paid for. A professional forger seldom has to fool the people with the spectrometers and x-ray machines, just the starry-eyed optimist with the checkbook. In that sense, very little has changed since Van Meegeren’s day.

Can casual observers typically spot a forgery?
Yes and no. Absolutely no one would be fooled by Van Meegeren’s Vermeer forgeries today. Their expiration date has come and gone, and they now look like what they are: twentieth century pictures. But good, convincing fakes continue to get made and continue to deceive laymen and experts alike. Until Scotland Yard recently encouraged him to retire, John Myatt enjoyed a nice run duping the experts at Christie’s and Sotheby’s with fakes in the style of Matisse, Chagall, Gleizes, and Dubuffet. Forgery will always be with us. And anyone who thinks he could never be fooled is probably a prime candidate for fleecing.

Slide show of images from “The Man Who Made Vermeers”

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