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Giacomo Medici (art dealer) by Wikipedia Accessed: 10/17/22
Giacomo Medici is an Italian antiquities smuggler and art dealer who was convicted in 2004 of dealing in stolen ancient artifacts. His operation was thought to be "one of the largest and most sophisticated antiquities networks in the world, responsible for illegally digging up and spiriting away thousands of top-drawer pieces and passing them on to the most elite end of the international art market".[1]
Illegal antiquities trade
After a long-running major investigation by the Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (or TPC, the unit of the Italian Carabinieri (military police) specializing in protecting that country's cultural heritage), Giacomo Medici was eventually charged, tried and convicted for his key role in an extensive and highly lucrative international antiquities smuggling ring.
For nearly 40 years, the group organised the systematic looting and theft of some of the most valuable Mediterranean artefacts ever found, "laundering" these stolen objects through corrupt international dealers and major auction houses, who then sold them on to major institutions and collectors around the world.
Investigation results
The staggering scale and value of the so-called "Medici conspiracy" was revealed in the 1990s by two fortuitous but connected events. The first was the downfall of former Sotheby's employee James Hodges, who in 1991 was tried and convicted of various charges related to his theft of antiquities and money from his employer. Unfortunately for Sotheby's - but very fortunately for investigators - prior to his arrest, Hodges had stolen or photocopied a number of internal Sotheby's documents which indicated that the company was behaving dishonestly and unethically in regard to the trading of antiquities. After Hodges' crimes were discovered, he tried to make a deal, using the stolen documents as a bargaining tool, but when Sotheby's refused, Hodges took revenge by passing the material to investigative journalist Peter Watson. Hodges' documents sparked a series of British press investigations into Sotheby's activities, and although not conclusive in their own right, they would also provide vital corroboration for the even more sensational discoveries made by Italian authorities in the mid-1990s.
The second fortuitous event was the death of one of the smuggling ring's main organisers, Pasquale Camera, a former captain in the Italian customs agency. When Camera was killed in a car accident in August 1995, police found dozens of photographs of stolen antiquities in the glove compartment of his car, which directly linked Camera to a recent theft of valuable antiquities from an Italian regional museum. Subsequent raids by the TCP uncovered a large hoard of stolen and looted antiquities of the highest quality, as well as an extraordinary collection of documents and photographs that chronicled the smuggling ring's operations in forensic detail. Most importantly of all, the raid on the Rome apartment of one of the smugglers yielded a crucial piece of evidence that enabled the TCP to break the entire ring wide open. It was a comprehensive organisational chart, handwritten by Camera himself, which named and linked every major player in the operation, including the gangs of tombaroli (tomb robbers) and their leaders, the middle-men (including Medici) who smuggled the looted treasures out of Italy and other countries, the corrupt international dealers (including British dealer Robin Symes and American dealer Robert E. Hecht) who traded the stolen goods through major auction houses—notably Sotheby's in London—and even the unscrupulous curators, institutions, and private collectors who purchased looted goods from the gang.
The paperwork also revealed that a Swiss-based holding company named Editions Services (the successor to his earlier Hydra Galleries in Rome) was operated by a "frontman" on Medici's behalf, that Editions Services shared the same Zurich address with the antiques company owned by Symes, and that Editions Services had sold three ancient marble sculptures previously stolen from an Italian collection.[2] On September 13, 1995, Italian and Swiss police raided the Editions Services offices in Geneva, Switzerland which were located in Port Franc, "the special commercial zone near the airport where international goods can be stored, bought, and sold, discreetly and tax-free".[2]
Looted artifacts
The Euphronios Krater, or "Sarpedon krater"
A notable object linked to the Medici gang is the "Sarpedon krater", a unique, signed Attic red-figure wine vessel dating from the late 6th century BCE, which was painted by Euphronios, one of the most famous ceramic artists of the ancient world. The krater was eventually shown to have been looted from a previously unknown Etruscan tomb near Cerveteri, Italy, in December 1971, and later sold to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 for the then record price of US$1 million.[citation needed]
Authorities found "hundreds of pieces of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art—including a set of Etruscan dinner plates valued at $2 million...voluminous sales records and correspondence between Medici and dealers in London and New York; and finally, binders and boxes containing thousands of photographs...of ancient objects...the archive included sequential photographs of single pieces from the moment they came out of the ground...to their finished, reconstructed appearance at the time they entered the art market and were sold for tens of thousands, and occasionally millions, of dollars. In a few cases there were even subsequent photos of the same objects inside the display cases of well-known museums".[1]
The forensic archaeologists investigating the Medici documents even discovered shocking photographic evidence that the gang had illegally excavated and looted at least one previously-undiscovered Roman villa in Pompeii, ruthlessly hacking several complete frescoes off the walls in laptop-sized pieces in order to steal them.
Arrest and trial
Medici was formally arrested in 1997, and in 2004 was sentenced by a Rome court to ten years in prison and a fine of 10 million euros, "the largest penalty ever meted out for antiquities crime in Italy".[1]
In 2005, evidence from the Geneva raid was used by the Italian government to indict American antiquities dealer Robert E. Hecht and former J. Paul Getty Museum curator of antiquities Marion True for conspiracy to traffic in illegal antiquities. The court hearings of the case against Hecht and True ended in 2012 and 2010, respectively, as the statute of limitations, under Italian law, for their alleged crimes had expired.[3]
Book
Medici's operation is detailed in Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini's 2006 book The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities from Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums.
References
1. "Breaking Up the Art Mob". Men's Vogue. 2 (3): 46. November–December 2006. 2. "Breaking Up the Art Mob". Men's Vogue. 2 (3): 44. November–December 2006. 3. Povoledo, Elisabetta (18 January 2012). "Italian Trial of American Antiquities Dealer Comes to an End". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
On September 13, 1995, Swiss police raided four bonded warehouses in Geneva, seizing a large number of artifacts allegedly smuggled from Italy. The premises were registered to a Swiss company called Editions Services, which police traced to a Roman named Giacomo Medici. In January 1997, the Carabinieri, Italy's national police force, arrested Medici, whom they described as "the real 'mastermind' of much of [Italy's] illegal traffic in archaeological objects." Medici claims that he acquired all of the artifacts legally and that he is not the "monster" he has been portrayed as. He also claims that the search was conducted without his presence or that of a representative of Editions Services, and that the police did not find documents, now missing, that would have shown the legal provenience of the artifacts. He is believed to have been released on his own reconnaissance, and to date he has not been charged with anything.
According to the Carabinieri, Italy's national police force, the warehouses contained 10,000 artifacts worth 50 billion lire (about $35 million), which would make the seizure one of the largest antiquities seizures ever. Medici disputes these numbers, saying that the warehouses contained between 200 and 300 artifacts worth far less than $35 million. Photographs of a portion of the material, however, show at least 500 artifacts, and Medici admits that "the photographs do not represent in full the objects which were inside the premises."
Last year, an account of the seizure and Medici's arrest, along with three photographs of artifacts in the haul, appeared in Peter Watson's book Sotheby's: The Inside Story (New York: Random House, 1997). John J. Herrmann, Jr., curator of classical art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, recognized two stone column capitals in one picture as having been stolen from the House of the Fish at Ostia, the port of ancient Rome. Herrmann alerted the archaeological superintendent of Ostia, and he says the capitals are now back where they belong.
How the capitals came to be in the warehouse is not known, but comparison of the photographs with Sotheby's catalogs, brought to our attention by readers, shows that some of the other material came from auctions in New York and London. A Boeotian figurine and a Minoan jar were sold at a 1990 auction of antiquities in the collection of the Erlenmeyer Foundation for Animal Welfare; according to the catalog, these two items had been published in Orientalia in the early 1960s. Three pieces of Attic pottery--a black-figure kylix, a red-figure kylix, and a red-figure hydria--were sold at a 1990 auction of antiquities in the collections of the Texas oil barons Nelson and William Hunt. According to the catalog, two of these had been purchased at the Summa Gallery in Los Angeles in 1981, while the third had been exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum the year before. A bronze griffin protome and two Egyptian relief fragments were sold at a 1991 auction. Frederick Schultz, president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental & Primitive Art, says that many of the other artifacts were acquired at auctions as well.
None of these pedigrees, however, reveals where ultimately the artifacts came from, or whether their excavation and exportation from their country of origin were legal. According to Reuters, in October 1996 the Swiss investigating magistrate, Jean-Pierre Trembley, ruled that they should be returned to Italy. They were cataloged by officials from the Archaeological Superintendency of Southern Etruria, but the following month a Geneva court revoked Trembley's decision, saying that the artifacts' provenance had to be proven before they could be returned. Italy has appealed, and Switzerland's federal court will hear the case.
Medici asserts that "most of these objects could not have been found in Italian archeological sites." Archaeologists who examined the photographs on behalf of ARCHAEOLOGY say the material was made in a wide range of places around the Mediterranean, including Greece (in photos 2, 8, 10, 20, 22, 24, 26, 50, 55, 63, 64, and 67) and Cyprus (54), as well as Britain and northern Europe (59). To this list, Schultz adds Egypt (32 and 51) and the ancient kingdom of Urartu (in parts of what are now Iran, Turkey, and Armenia; see photo 44). There are also a number of Roman pieces (18, 21, 29, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, and 66), but without further evidence it is difficult to tell whether much of it was made, or found, in Italy or one of the empire's far-flung provinces. Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and Turkey--as well as most of the countries spread over what was the Roman Empire--have longstanding laws establishing national ownership of archaeological remains.
According to the archaeologists who examined the photographs, however, a great deal of the material probably did originate in Italy. There are Etruscan bronzes and ceramics (1, 5, 6, 9, 13, 15, 16, 21, 25, 27, 28, 56, and 57); South Italian pottery (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, 22, and 68); and Villanovan material (from northern and central Italy, 19 and 23). Furthermore, Greek pottery was much loved by the Etruscan elite. The art historian Nigel Spivey has written that "Vulci [an Etruscan necropolis] is still our main source of [Greek] pots. After Vulci, other Etruscan sites: Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Orvieto and Chiusi." Of the pieces whose country of origin are identified in John Boardman's standard survey, Athenian Red Figure Vases, more than 60 percent come from Italy; Greece is second, with only 25 percent.
Letter from Giacomo Medici (also in Italian)
Letter from Frederick Schultz, president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental & Primitive art
1. Miscellaneous pottery, some South Italian; Etruscan candelabrum; Roman (?) sculptures 2. Attic and South Italian vases 3. Bronze griffin protome from a cauldron. Formerly of the Thetis collection. Sold at Sotheby's London on July 8, 1991. No further provenience information available. 4. South Italian pottery 5. Mixed Etruscan bronzes and South Italian pottery 6. Etruscan fibulae 7. Gold jewelry 8. Various Messapian, Attic, and South Italian vessels 9. Miscellaneous pottery, some South Italian; Etruscan candelabrum; Roman (?) sculptures 10. Boeotian terra-cotta figurine. Formerly of the Erlenmeyer collection. Published in Orientalia in 1962. Sold at Sotheby's London on July 9, 1990. 11. Miscellaneous pottery, some South Italian 12. Pottery, figurine, and sculptural head 13. Etruscan pottery 14. Bronze fibulae 15. Miscellaneous pottery, some South Italian; Etruscan candelabrum; Roman (?) sculptures 16. Mixed Etruscan bronzes and South Italian pottery 17. Mixed pottery and sculpture; opus sectile, possibly fake 18. Mixed pottery and Roman column capital 19. Villanovan and other pottery 20. Attic pottery, South Italian figurines, and sculpture 21. Mixed material, including Etruscan vases and a Roman painting 22. Mixed South Italian, Attic, and Messapian pottery 23. Villanovan and Etruscan funerary material, and later sculpture 24. Attic red-figure plate and other sherds 25. Etruscan and Italo-Geometric pottery 26. Attic black-figure cup. Formerly of the Hunt collection. Sold at Summa Galleries, Los Angeles, on September 18, 1981. Sold at Sotheby's New York on June 19, 1990. No further provenience information available. 27. Etruscan pottery chalice 28. Etruscan bronze fibulae 29. Roman glass vessels 30. Italian black-glaze pottery and lamps 31. Pottery 32. Relief of marching warriors, possibly fake. Left and center, sold at Sotheby's London on July 8, 1991. No further provenience information available. 33. Corinthian or Italo-Corinthian aryballoi 34. Two pots 35. Bronze horse bits, fibulae, and dagger 36. Sculptural fragments 37. Miscellaneous 38. Roman draped female figure 39. Roman column capitals 40. Roman column capitals 41. Roman architectural block 42. Flask and zoomorphic vase 43. Etruscan and Roman bronze candelabra 44. Cypriot (?) pottery 45. Various, mainly sculpture and carved architectural blocks 46. Fish plates and other pottery 47. Stone and metal points, and metal ax heads 48. Stone beads 49. Opus sectile, possibly fake 50. Minoan (?) jar. Formerly of the Erlenmeyer collection. Published in Orientalia in 1961. Sold at Sotheby's London on July 9, 1990. 51. Grave relief and Herakles statue 52. Bronze bull protome 53. Metal vessels 54. Mixed Cypriot and possibly some Attic pottery 55. Rhodian pottery 56. Mixed Etruscan bronzes 57. Mixed Etruscan bronzes and votive terra-cotta anatomical models 58. Corinthian or Italo-Corinthian aryballoi 59. Miscellaneous Romano-British and Celtic bronzes 60. Label 61. Pottery 62. Glass vessels 63. Attic red-figure cup. Formerly of the Hunt collection. Sold at Summa Galleries, Los Angeles, on September 18, 1981. Sold at Sotheby's New York on June 19, 1990. No further provenience information available. 64. Attic red-figure hydria. Formerly of the Hunt collection. Published in Stamnoi: An Exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum (1980). Sold at Sotheby's New York on June 19, 1990. No further provenience information available. 65. Gnathian krater 66. Roman wall paintings 67. Mixed Mycenaean and Geometric pottery; Boeotian figurine 68. South Italian pottery
Arthur Houghton Biography byarthurhoughton.com Accessed: 10/18/22
Seleucus apparently minted coins during his stay in India, as several coins in his name are in the Indian standard and have been excavated in India. These coins describe him as "Basileus" ("King"), which implies a date later than 306 BC. Some of them also mention Seleucus in association with his son Antiochus as king, which would also imply a date as late as 293 BC.
In the early 1980s, the antiquities department at the J. Paul Getty Museum was a hotbed of whispered political intrigue. Rumors swirled that the department’s Czech curator, Jiri Frel, was a Communist spy. And many believed the deputy curator, former State Department official Arthur Houghton, was a CIA plant tasked with keeping an eye on Frel’s activities....
As for Houghton and his ties to the CIA, the rumors were not far off. Before coming to the Getty in 1982, he had spent a decade working for the State Department, including time in its bureau of intelligence and research as a Mid East analyst. Houghton was fond of cultivating his image as a man of mystery. In truth, he had burned out on the diplomatic bureaucracy and chose a career that brought him closer to his long time passion — ancient coins. Houghton remains active in the field to this day.
Arthur Houghton attended Harvard College (BA 1963), the American University of Beirut (MA in Near Eastern studies, 1966), and Harvard University (MA in Fine Arts, 1982). He entered the US Department of State in 1966 and held positions in the American embassies in Beirut, Amman and Cairo; and with the White House National Security Council staff. He was Associate Curator and acting Curator-in-Charge of the Department of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum from 1982 to 1986.
Houghton holds current or previous board memberships with the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Corning Museum of Glass; the American Numismatic Society (where he served as president from 1985-89); American Near East Refugee Aid; the American School of Classical Studies at Athens; the Cyprus-American Archaeological Research Institute; the Middle East Institute; the American Council for Cultural Property; the Cultural Policy Research Institute, and the Council on Cultural Policy. His public service includes membership on the U.S. Cultural Property Advisory Committee (1984-87) and an advisory committee of the U.S. Mint (2007-2012).
Houghton's publications include, among others, more than sixty articles and four books dealing with archaeology, ancient history and art. He was awarded the American Numismatic Society's 2015 Archer M. Huntington medal for his career contributions to numismatic scholarship. He continues to be engaged with U.S. collecting museums and the issues of cultural property ownership and protection. Dark Athena, which draws on his experience in US government service and as former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum, is his first novel.
Arthur Houghton Full CV
(June 2015)
I. Books
Coins of the Seleucid Empire, Ancient Coins in North American Collections IV (New York, 1983).
ed, with S. Hurter, P.E. Mottahideh and J. Scott, Studies in Honor of Leo Mildenberg: Numismatics. Art History and Archaeology (Wetteren, 1984).
(with Catharine Lorber) Seleucid Coins. A Comprehensive Catalogue. Part 1. Seleucus I through Antiochus III (New York and Lancaster/London, 2002).
(with Catharine Lorber and Oliver Hoover) Seleucid Coins. A Comprehensive Catalogue. Part 2. Seleucus IV through Antiochus XIII (New York and Lancaster/London, 2008).
II. Articles
1. (With R. de Neufville) "A Description of Ain Fara and Wara," Kush 1964.
2. (With G. Le Rider) "Un trésor de monnaies hellénistiques trouvé prés de Suse," Revue Numismatique 1966.
3. "The Seleucid Mint at Lampsacus," American Numismatic Society Museum Notes 23 (1979).
4. "Timarchus as King in Babylonia, RN 1979.
5. "The Second Reign of Demetrius II at Tarsus," ANSMN 1980.
6. "Notes on the Early Seleucid Victory Coinage of 'Persepolis'," Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau 59 (1980).
8. "A Tetradrachm of Seleucia Pieria at the Getty Museum," J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 10 (1982).
9. "A Pergamene Head of Athena," JPGMJ 11 (1983).
10. Introduction to Archaic Coins, An Exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1982.
11. “The Coins of Nelson Bunker Hunt: Coins of the Ancient World,” Wealth of the Ancient World (Fort Worth 1983) pp. 145-154.
12. "The Portraits of Antiochus IX," Antike Kunst 1984.
13. (With W. Moore), "Some Early Northeastern Seleucid Mints," ANSMN 29 (1984).
14. "The Royal Seleucid Mint of Seleucia on the Calycadnus," Kraay-Mőrkholm Essavs. Numismatic Studies in the Memory of C.M. Kraay and 0. Mőrkholm (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1989).
15. "The Seleucid Mint of Mallus and the Cult Figure of Athena Magarsia," Studies in Honor of Leo Mildenberg: Numismatics, Art History and Archaeology (Wetteren, 1984).
16. (With G. Le Rider) "Le deuxième fils d'Antiochos IV à Ake-Ptolemaïs," SNR 1985.
17. "A Colossal Head in the Antakya Museum and the Portraiture of Seleucus I," Antike Kunst 1986.
18. "The Elephants of Nisibis," ANSMN 31 (1986).
19. "Syria and the East," A Survey of Numismatic Research (London, 1986).
20. "A Didrachm Issue of Antiochus VI of Byblos," Israel Numismatic Journal 9 (1986-7).
21. "The Double Portrait Coins of Antiochus XI and Philip I: A Seleucid Mint at Beroea?" SNR 66 (1987).
22. Preface to J.M. Doyen, Les Monnaies Antiques du Tell Abou Danné et d'Oumm el-Marra (Campagnes 1976-1985) (Brussels, 1987).
23. (With G. Le Rider), "Un premier règne d'Antiochos VIII Epiphane à Antioche en 128," Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 112 (1988).
24. "The Double Portrait Coins of Alexander I Balas and Cleopatra Thea," SNR 67 (1988).
26. With S. Bendall, "A Hoard of Aegean Tetradrachms, etc." ANSMN 33 (1988).
27. "The Royal Seleucid Mint of Soli," Numismatic Chronicle 149 (1989).
28. "A Victory Coin and the Parthian Wars of Antiochus VII," Proceedings of the 10th International Numismatic Congress. London. September 8-10.1986 (London 1989), p.65.
29. “The Royal Seleucid Mint of Seleucia on the Calycadnus,” Kraay-Mörkholm Essays, Numismatic Studies in the Memory of C.M.Kraay and O. Mörkholm (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1989).
30. (With A. Spaer) "New Silver Coins of Demetrius III and Antiochus XII at Damascus,1' Schwietzer Münzblatter 157 (February 1990).
31. (With W. Müseler), "The Reigns of Antiochus VIII and Antiochus IX at Damascus," SM 159 (August 1990).
32. "The Antioch Project," Mnemata: Papers in Memory of Nancv M. Waggoner (New York 1991).
33. "Some Alexander Coinages of Seleucus I with Anchors," Mediterranean Archaeology 4 (1991), pp.99-117.
34. "The Advent of Antiochus VI at Apamea: the Numismatic Evidence," Abstracts of Papers. XIth Numismatic Congress. Brussels. September 9-12. 1991
35. Introduction to The Heritage of Tyre, a Colloquium, Washington 1987.
36. "The Accession of Antiochus VI at Apamea: the Numismatic Evidence," Proceedings of the XIth International Numismatic Congress, etc.
37. "The Revolt of Tryphon and the Accession of Antiochus VI at Apamea: the Chronologies of Antiochus VI and Tryphon," SNR 1992, pp.119-141.
38. "The Coinage of Demetrius I at Ake-Ptolemais," Florilegium Numismaticum. Studia in honorem U. Westermark edita (Uppsala, 1992), pp.163-9.
39.. "The Seleucid Mint of Aegeae in Aeolia" RN 1992, pp.229-232.
40. "Two Late Seleucid Lead Issues from the Levant," INJ 11 (1990-1), pp. 26-31.
41. "Bronze Coins of Antiochus IV of Mallus," SM 169 (1993), pp.5-8.
42. “The Reigns of Antiochus VIII and Antiochus IX at Antioch and Tarsus,” SNR 1993, pp. 87-111.
43. “Four Seleucid Notes. 2: The Chronology of the Later Coinage of Demetrius I at Ecbatana” and ibid, “4: Countermarks of Tryphon: Comments on the Circulation of Currency in Northern Syria, ca. 150-140 B.C.”, AJN 5-6 (1993-4), pp. 46-53 and 59-68.
43A. “The Chronology of the Later Coinage of Demetrius I at Ecbatana,” AJN 5-6 (1993-4), pp. 46-53.
44. (with Catharine Lorber), “The Seleucids and the Ptolemies,” A Survey of Numismatic Research 1990-1995 (Berlin 1997), pp. 115-124.
45. “Some Seleucid Test Pieces,” AJN 9 (1997), pp. 1-5.
46. “Aradus, not Marathus,” Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price, R. Ashton and S. Hurter, eds. (London 1998), pp. 145-6.
47. “A New Coin of Antiochus XI and Philip of Antioch. The Struggle for the Seleucid Succession, 94-84 B.C,” SNR 1998, pp. 65-69
48. “The Early Seleucid Mint of Laodicea ad Mare (c. 300-246 B.C.)”, Travaux de numismatique grecques offerts à Georges le Rider A. Amandry and S. Hurter, eds. (Paris 1999), pp. 169-184.
49. (With Andrew Stewart) “The Equestrian Portrait of Alexander the Great on a New Tetradrachm of Seleucus I,” SNR 1999, pp. 27-35.
50. “A mint of Antiochus IX at Samaria-Sebaste?” AJN 12 (2000), pp. 107-112.
51. “The Production of Money by Mints of the Seleucid Core,” in C. Augé and F. Duyrat, eds, Les monnayages syriens. Quel apport pour l’histoire de Proche-Orient hellénistiquee et romain? Actes de la table ronde de Damas 10-12 novembre 1999 (Beryrouth, 2002), pp. 5-19.
52. (with Catharine Lorber) “Antiochus III in Coele-Syria and Phoenicia”, INJ 14 (2000-2002), pp. 44-58.
53. “Seleucid Coinages and Monetary Policy of the 2nd c. B.C. Reflections on the Monetization of the Seleucid Economy,” Topoi, Supplément 6 (2004), pp. 49-79.
54. “Some observations on coordinated bronze currency systems in Seleucid Syria and Phoenicia,” INJ 15 (2003-6), pp. 35-47.
55. (with Catharine Lorber) “Cappadocian Tetradrachms in the Name of Antiochus VII,” NC 2006, pp. 49-85.
56. (with David Hendin), “Defining Rarity,” The Celator, June 2008 (Vol. 22, no. 6), pp. 28-31.
57. (with Oliver Hoover and Petr Vesely) “The Silver Mint of Damascus under Demetrius III and Antiochus XII,” AJN 20 (2008)
58. (with Catharine Lorber and Oliver Hoover) Seleucid Coins. A Comprehensive Catalogue. Part 2. Seleucus IV through Antiochus XIII ( New York and Lancaster/London, 2008).
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Seleucus apparently minted coins during his stay in India, as several coins in his name are in the Indian standard and have been excavated in India. These coins describe him as "Basileus" ("King"), which implies a date later than 306 BC. Some of them also mention Seleucus in association with his son Antiochus as king, which would also imply a date as late as 293 BC.
(PLATES 1-2)
In the forty-five years since E. T. Newell's publication of Eastern Seleucid Nlints1 the appearance of important new numismatic material and the work of a number of scholars have helped dispel some of the mystery surrounding the early activity of mints operating in the far eastern part of the Seleucid empire. For example, new light has been shed on the production of coinage under Seleucus I and Antiochus I at the two cities of Seleucia on the Tigris2 and Susa,3 and what Newell believed to have been a flourishing mint at Persepolis in the same period is now thought to have produced no coinage at all.4
At the great marriage ceremony at Susa in the spring of 324 BC, Seleucus married Apama (daughter of Spitamenes), and she bore him his eldest son and successor Antiochus I Soter, at least two legitimate daughters (Laodice and Apama) and possibly another son (Achaeus). At the same event, Alexander married the daughter of the late Persian King Darius III while several other Macedonians married Persian women. After Alexander's death (323 BC), when the other senior Macedonian officers unloaded their "Susa wives" en masse, Seleucus was one of the very few who kept his wife, and Apama remained his consort (later Queen) for the rest of her life. -- Seleucus I Nicator, by Wikipedia
A new mint, evidently producing silver coinage for local use only under Antiochus I, has been generally located in the Baluchistan area.5 In the province of Bactra, the excavations at Ai Khanoum have produced evidence supporting the existence of a mint at that city, although the scope of its production remains very uncertain.6 New examples of coinages which Newell recognized as being from the east and several previously unknown issues from the same general area have appeared, moreover, all adding depth to the scant material which he was able to catalogue from the far northeastern reaches of the Seleucid empire.7
A sufficient number of silver coins produced by one such mint now exists to give a clearer picture of its range of activity than Newell had supposed and to provide some indication of its general location. With no certain identification possible at this time, we propose to call it Mint X.
Mint X's production comprises a coherent series of Alexander-type issues struck in the name of Antiochus, including tetradrachms, drachms and hemidrachms. All are linked by the distinctive left field monogram [x], and are related by technical and stylistic affinities. They are generally characterized by cupped flans, moderately so in the case of the tetradrachms, very evidently in that of the drachms and hemidrachms. Also, the die adjustment of the tetradrachms, where known, is in the upright position (↓ or [x]), with the exception of one coin (Group 3, A2-P3); the dies of the smaller denominations appear to have been left unadjusted. The group is also unified by the unusual configuration of the inscription, which runs from beneath the exergue to the right of the figure of Zeus, curving around the rear throne leg so that the king's name must be read from the outside.
Stylistically, the issues of Mint X generally follow the conventions of Alexander-type coinage struck at other eastern mints, including Seleucia on the Tigris and Ecbatana. The Heracles head of the obverse retains the forceful brow and emphasized orbital common to late fourth century B.C. heroic imagery. The face, however, has a certain mannered refinement closely related to that appearing on tetradrachms of Seleucus I struck at Ecbatana, where the similarity of detail extends to the long and free-flowing lion's mane.8 The reverses, which show the figure of Zeus seated on a throne without a back, have no close parallel among the Seleucid coinages of the east.
MINT X
ANTIOCHUS I
Obv. Head of Heracles in lion's skin r.
Rev. [x] (in exergue) ANTIOXOY (to r., upward); Zeus seated I. on throne, holding scepter with l. hand and eagle in outstretched r.; to l., [x].
Group 1: [x] beneath throne.
Tetradrachms
A1-P1 ↑ 14.32. BM (Oman Coll.). WSM, p. 35, cited as 755[x] and noted as being from the Punjab. Plate 1, 1.
A1-PI [x] 16.62. ANS (Newell Coll.). Hamburger, June 1930, 412. ESM 755. Plate 1, 2.
A1-P1 ↑ 17.43. SNGFitz 5524; WSM, p. 35, cited as 755.F.
A1-P1 ↑15.65. Kovacs 4, 8 Aug. 1983, 103 (ex ANS, Kelley Collection: see H. A. Troxell and N. Waggoner, "Robert F. Kelley Bequest," ANSMN 23 (1978), p. 37, 45); Glendinning, 18 Apr. 1955, 567. Possibly the same as the Sydenham coin, below. Plate 1, 3.
? ? = 15.65. Ex. Sydenham Coll. WSM, p. 35, cited as 755[x].
Group 2: [x] beneath throne.
Tetradrachm
A1-P2 14.90. The inscription has been extensively recut and the monogram is not fully clear. Naville 10, 15 June 1925, 836; ESM 755a ("cast?"). Plate 1, 4.
Hemidrachms
ai-pi [x] 1.88. BM. Plate 1, 5.
aii-pii ← 1.99. The monogram beneath the throne may be [x]. ANS. Said to be from Afghanistan. ANSMN 23, p. 37 (where the lower monogram is recorded as [x]). Plate 1, 6.
Group 3: [x] beneath throne.
Tetradrachm
A2-P3 ↓ 15.53. BM. WSM, p. 35, cited as 755§ and noted as being from Chanda Mall (Pakistan). Plate 1, 7.
Drachm
a1-p1 The monogram appears to be [x]. Sotheby's, 20 Feb. 1980, 286. Plate 2, 8.
Group 4: [x] beneath throne.
Drachm
a2-p2 [x] 4.14. From Iran. Houghton 1308.9 Plate 2, 9.
Group 5: [x] beneath throne.
Drachm
a3-p3 ↓ 3.64. Said to be from Afghanistan. Private U.S. Coll. Plate 2, 10.
Uncertain Group
Hemidrachm
aiii-piii ↓ 2.05. Monogram beneath throne, if any, off flan. Ashmolean. WSM, p. 36, 755A. Plate 2, 11.
The relationship between the issues of Mint X and those of Ecbatana struck under Seleucus I extends to the cupped flans and unusual configuration of the inscription, which recall similar features on early Alexander-type coins of Antiochus I also assigned by Newell to this mint.10 An issue from the Median capital may have been used as a prototype for Mint X's tetradrachms; alternatively, an engraver from Ecbatana may have been transferred to cut the dies of the series. That the mint was not under the direct influence of Bactra seems likely, given the absence of Alexander-type issues within the known production of this mint and the fact that the dies of coins struck at Bactra were consistently adjusted to the inverted position.11
Only two obverse tetradrachm dies are known for Mint X. If one assumes a moderate but continuous rate of operation, the period of production for the entire series of Mint X's tetradrachms did not extend beyond a year or two. The drachms and hemidrachms could also have been struck within this time frame, perhaps a bit longer: with a very incomplete picture of the mint's production of small denomination coinage, it is more difficult to tell. The impression one has in any event is that Mint X's activity, and therefore importance, was very limited.
Based on the fact that elsewhere in the Seleucid east Alexander-type issues were struck during the early years of rule of Antiochus I, Mint X would appear to have been active under this king soon after 280 B.C., perhaps earlier.12
Where exactly Mint X was situated is problematical. The provenances of its coins range from Iran in the west to Rawalpindi, Pakistan, suggesting its location in the general area of Afghanistan or eastern Iran. One of the major cities of the area, such as Artacoana-Alexandria in Aria (Herat), could have issued the coins in question, but the limited production of Mint X would seem to preclude the likelihood of a major provincial center.13 An alternative possibility is the area of southern Afghanistan near Kandahar, which may lie close to the site of ancient Alexandria Arachosia. Kandahar itself is on a southern branch of the route from western Iran which passes first through Herat, turns southward to Seistan, then goes up the Helmand Valley to present-day Kabul.14 Coins produced at a city in this area would have been likely to reflect the style and technique of issues struck at Ecbatana, but not necessarily those of Bactra, whose location north of the Hindu Kush would have made contact with Seistan difficult at best.15
Several other issues in silver and bronze from the general area of Afghanistan, of a style and technique quite different from those of Mint X, can be added to the material of known eastern origin. We propose to assign a coherent small group of these to Mint Y.
MINT Y
ANTIOCHUS I
Obv. Head of Heracles in lion's skin r.
Rev. [x] (in exergue) ANTIOXOY (to r., upward) Zeus seated l, on throne, holding scepter with l. hand and eagle in outstretched r.
Drachms
a1-p1 ↑ 3.84. To l., uncertain monogram; beneath throne, [x] Private U.S. coll. From Afghanistan. Plate 2, 12.
a2-p2 ↑ 3.64. King's title off flan; to l., [x] ; beneath throne, [x]. Private U.S. coll. From Afghanistan. Plate 2, 13.
a3-p3 ↑ 3.47. To l., [x]; beneath throne, traces of monogram. BM. Plate 2, 14.
The three known drachms of Mint Y, also Alexander-types issued in the name of Antiochus, are all struck in low relief on relatively flat flans. There are no die or monogram links between the individual coins, but they are unified by the configuration of their inscriptions, which like those of Mint X run from the exergue to the right field behind Zeus, and by their stylistic cohesion (the dies of all three appear to have been cut by the same hand). Like the small denomination issues of mint X, their dies are unadjusted.
The few examples cited above are insufficient to give more than a very incomplete picture of the activity of Mint Y. Their provenance (all are from Afghanistan) is too vague to isolate a specific locality where they may have been struck, but their epigraphic similarity to the issues of Mint X and their general relationship to the Alexander-type coins of Seleucus and Antiochus produced further to the west also suggest a mint operating in the general area of southern Afghanistan in the years shortly after Antiochus's accession. Little more than this can be said at the present time.
Two other mints appear to have issued silver coinage of the Alexander-type from locations in the general area of Afghanistan during the early Seleucid period. Both evidently operated for only very brief periods. One is represented by a tetra drachm and a drachm struck under Seleucus I on very flat flans with unadjusted dies, united by a common monogram and similar styles. Their inscriptions, in both instances [x], are written in two lines to the right of Zeus but face in different directions (read from the inside in the case of the tetradrachm, from the outside in that of the drachm). The tetra drachm was found at Ai Khanoum; the drachm is from Iran. It is not now possible to establish the exact site of the mint producing these issues, although it has been located in a very general manner in the east.16
The site of the second mint is equally uncertain. It is represented by two tetradrachms, both from India (ESM 747-48), struck during the co-regency of Seleucus I and Antiochus I. They have no monogram in common, but have a similarity of fabric, style, reverse detail, and die adjustment ([x] in both cases). Newell has proposed their assignment to a mint in eastern Iran, possibly Alexandria Prophthasia in Seistan.17 Bernard and Guillaume have suggested instead a mint in Bactria, not Bactra itself.18 The arguments for -- and against -- each seem equally strong.
Two recently discovered bronze coins of Antiochus I, also from Afghanistan, may be related to the mint at Ai Khanoum. Both coins, a double and a unit, are part of a series modeled on the staters of Alexander the Great and Seleucus I, with the obverse type of a helmeted Athena head, the reverse that of a standing Nike bracketed by the inscription [x] (Plate 2, 15 and 16).19 As is commonly the case with bronze coinage struck in the east, the edge of their flans is beveled. The coins of the group, including the related double and three halves found in the excavation material at Ai Khanoum, have no monograms.20 The unit illustrated at Plate 2, 16, fills a gap in the series, all of the known examples of which have inverted dies.
The latter element in itself suggests that this group was produced at a mint associated with the provincial center of Bactra. The provenance of four examples in controlled excavations at Ai Khanoum adds to the possibility that this site was the originating mint, although the evidence is not conclusive. Other bronze issues of Antiochus I have been found in the Ai Khanoum excavations in such quantities as to indicate unequivocally the existence of a mint at this site producing small denomination coinage.21
Our current state of knowledge, including the evidence of the new material from Ai Khanoum and Mints X and Y, does not radically change the picture which emerged from Newell's study: that of a single major mint in the Seleucid northeast, at Bactra, operated from the second decade of the third century to ca. 256 or later.22
Ashoka, 3rd Mauryan Emperor, Reign: c. 268 – c. 232 BCE, Coronation: 268 BCE -- -- Ashoka, by Wikipedia
It does however, add to our understanding of supplemental mint activity in the same area and period, particularly under Antiochus I. In the early part of his reign, Antiochus appears to have established a small group of mints located from Bactra in the north, through Seistan, to the western edge of the Baluchistan desert in the south. The types of silver issues produced at these mints were based on coins struck at major provincial mints of western Iran, replicated stylistically as well as iconographically. The principal routes of travel seem to have determined the transfer of form -- Alexander-types from Ecbatana to Bactra and Seistan; Victory types from Susa to Baluchistan.
The period of production of these peripheral mints appears in each instance to have been quite short. The reasons for this are obscure, and perhaps not identical in the case of each mint. On the one hand, their brevity of operation suggests that the need for locally-produced money was not as great as may have been originally perceived, and that currency requirements were in time met from other sources. On the other, the possibility exists that one or more mints may have been opened as much for political as monetary reasons, perhaps during the early period of Antiochus's city-building, which extended to the empire's easternmost reaches. In such circumstances, the coins would have functioned as a symbol of Seleucid territorial preemption.
A firmer determination of cause will have to wait until a fuller picture is available of the archaeology and numismatics of the area in the early hellenistic era. Today, the new numismatic material and the excavations at Ai Khanoum provide a tantalizing and still very incomplete glimpse of a broader pattern of mint activity in this period than was hitherto known.
Plate 1: Early Far Northeastern Seleucid Mints
Plate 2: Early Far Northeastern Seleucid Mints
_______________
Notes:
1 E. T. Newell, Eastern Seleucid Minis, ANSNS 1 (New York, 1938), cited hereafter as ESM. For their generous assistance in providing photographs and other information on which this article is based, we wish to thank Andrew Daneman of Summa Galleries, Beverly Hills; Gunther Dembski of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Yienna; Frank L. Kovacs of San Francisco; Mrs. E. Maries of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Martin Price of the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum; T. R. Volk of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; and Nancy Waggoner of the American Numismatic Society.
2 N. Waggoner, "The Early Alexander Coinage at Seleucia on the Tigris," ANSMN 15 (1969), pp. 21-30.
3 A. Houghton, "Notes on the Early Seleucid Victory Coinage of 'Persepolis'," SNR 59 (1980), pp. 5-11.
4 Houghton (above, n. 3).
5 Houghton (above, n. 3), pp. 11-13.
6 P. Bernard and O. Guillaume, "Monnaies inedites de la Bactriane grecque a Ai Khanoum (Afghanistan)," RN 1980, pp. 17-19; see also G. le Rider, "Les Monnaies," Fouilles d' Ai Khanoum 1, Memoires de la Delegation archaologique francaise en Afghanistan, 21 (Paris, 1973).
7 For example, C. Y. Petitot-Biehler, "Tresor de monnaies grecques et greco-bactriennes trouve a Ai Khanoum (Afghanistan)," RN 1975, p. 40, no. 52; also, the many new issues discussed by Bernard and Guillaume, above n. 6, pp. 9-32.
8 Noted by Newell, ESM, p. 264.
9 A. Houghton, Coins of the Seleucid Empire, ACNAC 4 (New York, 1983); hereafter cited as CSE.
10 For example, ESM 508 and 512.
11 ESM, p. 230 and note 9.
12 See the Alexander-type coins of Seleucus I, WSM, p. 35, 754A (a tetradrachm) and ESM, 754 (a hemidrachm), with the left field monogram [x] and [x] beneath the throne, which may have been struck at Mint X. They differ from the issues of Mint X in their crude obverse style and their inscriptions, which show the king's title and name on two lines to the right of Zeus. The find spot of the tetradrachm, to the east of the Helmand River in Seistan is, if not indicative, at least suggestive of a mint site in southern Afghanistan.
13 There is no compelling reason, in any case, to revise Newell's somewhat tentative assignment of ESM 727-45, issues of Antiochus I, II and Seleucus II, to Artacoana, comprising as they do a major mint series of royal coin types, produced over a period of more than 30 years. While these coins have cupped flans like the issues of Mint X, there is no monogram or stylistic relationship between the two groups.
14 K. Fischer, "Zur Lage von Kandahar an Landverbindungen zwischen Iran und Indien," Bonner Jahrbucher 167 (1967), pp. 129-32, documents the route but provides little evidence for the location of ancient cities between Herat and Kabul.
15 A professional Afghani, who has dealt extensively with Seleucid coins in his own country, has mentioned the frequent appearance of drachms with cupped flans from the area of Seistan. It is difficult to give great weight to the report without the specifics of the coins themselves, but it intersects with other information pointing to a possible location of Mint X in the southern part of Afghanistan.
16 Petitot-Biehler (above, n. 7), p. 40, no. 52 (tetradrachm); CSE 1305 (drachm).
17 ESM, p. 261.
18 Bernard and Guillaume (above, n. 6), p. 19, n. 19.
19 Both coins are in the W. Moore collection, Portland, Oregon. The double: ↓ 5.98: Plate 2, 15; the unit: ↓ 4.47: Plate 2, 16.
20 Bernard and Guillaume (above, n. 6), pp. 29-30, no. 4.
21 Bernard and Guillaume (above, n. 6), p. 21, no. 1.
22 For the chronology, see the discussion in CSE, p. 118.
The Getty kouros is an over-life-sized statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros. The dolomitic marble sculpture was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, in 1985 for ten million dollars and first exhibited there in October 1986....
The kouros first appeared on the art market in 1983 when the Basel dealer Gianfranco Becchina offered the work to the Getty's curator of antiquities, Jiří Frel.
During his tenure as curator, Frel considerably expanded the collection of Greek and Roman artifacts, transforming it to one of the leading museums of the world. He also recruited collectors to donate their items to the museum, apparently frustrated by the refusal of the management to buy new items which were not high-profile. To facilitate this, Frel designed a tax evasion scheme in which fictitious donors paid to an intermediary to get tax reductions for donations of artifact they have never seen. The scam was uncovered by Thomas Hoving, and Frel had to resign in 1984. Before leaving the Getty Museum in 1986 he hired Marion True, the new curator, who was later charged with laundering stolen artifacts.
Frel deposited the sculpture (then in seven pieces) at Pacific Palisades along with a number of documents purporting to attest to the statue's authenticity. These documents traced the provenance of the piece to a collection in Geneva of Dr. Jean Lauffenberger who, it was claimed, had bought it in 1930 from a Greek dealer. No find site or archaeological data was recorded. Amongst the papers was a suspect 1952 letter allegedly from Ernst Langlotz, then the preeminent scholar of Greek sculpture, remarking on the similarity of the kouros to the Anavyssos youth in Athens (NAMA 3851). Later inquiries by the Getty revealed that the postcode on the Langlotz letter did not exist until 1972, and that a bank account mentioned in a 1955 letter to an A.E. Bigenwald regarding repairs on the statue was not opened until 1963.
The documentary history of the sculpture was evidently an elaborate fake and therefore there are no reliable facts about its recent history before 1983. At the time of acquisition, the Getty Villa's board of trustees split over the authenticity of the work. Federico Zeri, founding member of board of trustees and appointed by Getty himself, left the board in 1984 after his argument that the Getty kouros was a forgery and should not be bought was rejected.
Marion True (born November 5, 1948) was the former curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. True was indicted on April 1, 2005 by an Italian court, on criminal charges accusing her of participating in a conspiracy that laundered stolen artifacts through private collections and creating a fake paper trail; the Greeks later followed suit.[1] The trial brought to light many questions about museum administration, repatriation, and ethics.
Early years
True was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in 1948, and grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where she developed an interest in Greek Antiquities.[1] True later received a scholarship to study the classics and fine arts at New York University, NYU. True also has a master's degree in classical archaeology from NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, and a PhD from Harvard, where she studied under Emily Dickinson Vermeule.[2][3] True was trained by Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule III, contemporary scholar of Ancient Art and Curator of Classical Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1957 to 1996.
In 1982, True joined The Getty as a curatorial assistant and later became a curator in 1986. True created a new policy for The Getty in 1987,[1] which required the museum to notify governments when objects were being considered for acquisitions. Under this new policy, if a government could prove an object had been illegally exported, the museum would return it.
[Narrator] But the paintings were only one element of the con. In a master stroke of cunning, Drewe painstakingly ensured that the legitimacy of the fake paintings were never questioned.
[John Myatt] The way he wanted to take it, you have to provide the paintings with a history with what they call a "provenance," which is pretty much the same as a service history with your car. You know, stamps in the book, and all the rest of it. And he made it his job to do that.
[Peter Nahum, Art Dealer] The point about authenticating a painting is, the first and most important thing is, looking at the picture, and judging the paint, the calligraphy, the way the brushstrokes are put on, and the color balance, etc., with authenticated works by the artist. The second most important thing, which is very important if the picture has provenance, histories of previous owners, especially if it takes you back to the artist, and also exhibitions the pictures have been in. So provenance is very important.
[Jonathan Searle, Fraud Squad, New Scotland Yard] And if you've got the provenance that's there, and the provenances were very, very professional. I've never seen anything like it. And if I had been a dealer, I'd have most certainly been fooled.
[Narrator] And to make the scam work, John Drewe presented himself as a darling of the art world.
[Jonathan Searle, Fraud Squad, New Scotland Yard] John Drewe gave a donation of twenty thousand pounds to the Tate, and as a result of that, he was naturally thought of as a supporter of the arts. And he said he was interested in looking up the old archives -- which he did -- in the Tate. And he set to work. A very busy little bee. To my knowledge, the type of forgery of archival material, has never been done to this extent with paintings. And not on such a scale, and not so audacious. Because this was full-penetration of the Tate archives, and the V&A archives, and a number of other archives as well.
[John Myatt] He would fabricate catalogues of exhibitions, by taking a catalogue out of an archive, inserting one of my new paintings into the catalogue, returning it to the archive, and then a researcher will say, "Oh yes, well, you know, that was obviously exhibited in in Brighton Art Gallery, or something, And that is the history which validates the painting -- however poor the quality.
In 1992, True organized a symposium to debate the authenticity of a Greek kouros, which is referred to today as the Getty kouros.[1] The label in the museum reads, "Greek, 530 BCE or Modern Forgery". This Kouros was worth $10 million in 1985 when it was acquired, and it is believed to have been looted from southern Italy.
In 1995, True put in place another acquisition policy that prohibited the museum from acquiring antiquities that lacked thorough documentation, or that had not previously been part of an established collection.[1] Later in 1995, The Getty incorporated the collection of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman into the museum's collection.[1] During that same year, True obtained a private loan to purchase a vacation home on the Greek Island of Paros; Larry Fleischman offered to loan True the money to repay this loan in 1996.[1] Later, lawyers would question if True and the Fleischmans had a conflict of interest.
Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman papers, 1837-1984, bulk 1935-1979
Biographical Note
Lawrence Fleischman (1925-1997) of New York City was an American art collector, patron, philanthropist, and benefactor. He and his wife, Barbara Greenberg Fleischman, assembled an impressive collection of art and artifacts that they shared with the public as part of their philanthropic activities aimed at fostering a wider appreciation of the arts around the world.
Lawrence Fleischman was born on February 14, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Stella and Arthur Fleischman, the owner of a large carpet business. He attended the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, and studied engineering at Purdue University. In 1942, he interrupted his studies to volunteer for service in the U.S. Army during World War II. While serving in France, he met a doctor who further fostered Fleischman's ever growing interest in American art. Following the war, he graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Detroit. Fleischman met Barbara Greenberg in Detroit and they were married in 1948.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Fleischman established a fledgling television station, developed holdings in real estate, and began purchasing art work. Initially the Fleischmans collected undervalued 20th century American art and were friends with several artists, including John Marin, Charles Burchfield, Stuart Davis, and Ben Shahn. They also expanded the scope of their collection to include 19th century American works.
During the 1950s, Lawrence Fleischman realized how there were few American art historians and college departments, as well as a lack of primary source material. Fleischman worked with Edgar P. Richardson, then director of the Detroit Institute of Art, to raise funds and they founded the Archives of American Art at the Detroit Institute of Art in 1954. The Archives of American Art was, and still is, dedicated to the collection, preservation, and study of primary source records that document the history of the visual arts in the United States. Lawrence A. Fleischman is a founding Trustee of the AAA and served as the Chairman of the Board from 1958 to 1966. His wife, Barbara joined the Board of Trustees in 1997 and served as Chair from 2003 to 2007. She is a Trustee Emerita.
Lawrence Fleischman's business and philanthropic interests included the Arthur Fleischman Carpet Company, the Lee Plaza Hotel-Motel in Detroit, Art Adventurers, the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Detroit, the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Cultural Committee of the United States Information Agency, and the Art Commission of Detroit, which governed the Detroit Institute of Art. He also served as an officer of the Board for many of the arts-related organizations.
Former USIA Director of TV and Film Service Alvin Snyder recalled in his 1995 memoir that "the U.S. government ran a full-service public relations organization, the largest in the world, about the size of the twenty biggest U.S. commercial PR firms combined. Its full-time professional staff of more than 10,000, spread out among some 150 countries, burnished America‘s image and trashed the Soviet Union 2,500 hours a week with a 'tower of babble' comprised of more than 70 languages, to the tune of over $2 billion per year". "The biggest branch of this propaganda machine" was the USIA.
In 1996, the Fleischmans moved their family from Detroit to New York City, where Lawrence Fleischman became a partner in the Kennedy Galleries.
The Fleischmans philanthropic activities include generous support of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Cleveland Museum, the British Museum, the Vatican Museum, and lifelong support of the Archives of American Art.
Lawrence Fleischman died on January 31, 1997 in London, England. Barbara Fleischman lives in New York City and continues to be an active supporter of the visual arts.
-- Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman papers, 1837-1984, bulk 1935-1979, by The Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
Trial
In 2005, True was indicted by the Italian government, along with renowned American antiquities dealer, Robert E. Hecht, for conspiracy to traffic in illicit antiquities. She was accused of participating in a conspiracy that laundered stolen objects through private collection in order to create a fake paper trail that would serve as the items' provenance.[4] The Getty issued statements supporting True, "We Trust that this trial will result in her exoneration and end further damage to the personal and professional reputation of Dr. True."[1] The primary evidence in the case came from the 1995 raid of a Geneva, Switzerland warehouse, which contained a fortune in stolen artifacts. Italian art dealer, Giacomo Medici, was eventually arrested in 1997; his operation was thought to be "one of the largest and most sophisticated antiquities networks in the world, responsible for illegally digging up and spiriting away thousands of top-drawer pieces and passing them on to the most elite end of the international art market".[5] Medici was sentenced in 2004, by a court in Rome, to ten years in prison and a fine of 10 million euros, "the largest penalty ever meted out for antiquities crime in Italy".[5]
On October 1, 2005, True resigned from The Getty.[1] In November 2006, The Greek prosecution followed the Italian's lead, charging True with trafficking in looted antiquities due to her involvement in The Getty's purchase of an illicitly excavated golden funerary wreath.[1] On November 20, 2006, the Director of the museum, Michael Brand, announced that 26 disputed pieces were to be returned to Italy.
In a letter to the J. Paul Getty Trust on December 18, 2006, True stated that she was being made to "carry the burden" for practices which were known, approved, and condoned by The Getty's Board of Directors.[6] True testified for the first time in March 2007.
In September 2007, Italy dropped the civil charges against True.[1] The Getty also announced its plan to return 40 out of 46 objects. On September 26, 2007, Getty Center signed a contract with the Italian Culture ministry in Rome to return stolen arts from Italy.[7] Forty ancient art works would be returned including: the 5th century BC Aphrodite limestone and marble statue, in 2010; fresco paintings stolen from Pompeii; marble and bronze sculptures; and Greek vases.
In November 2007, the Greek criminal charges against True were dropped as the statute of limitations had expired. The wreath and three other items from the Getty's collection were returned to Greece.[1]
Criminal charges
All charges against True were eventually dismissed. Because the statute of limitations had expired, she was acquitted in 2007 of charges relating to the acquisition of a 2,500-year-old funerary wreath, which was shown to have been looted from northern Greece.[8] The wreath in question had already been returned to Greece. In 2010, an Italian court dismissed the remainder of the charges against her, holding that the statute of limitations has expired.[9]
Contested artifacts
Aphrodite of Morgantina was an acrolithic sculpture acquired by The Getty in 1988, it is a 7-foot-tall, 1,300-pound statue of limestone and marble.[10] The Museum and True ignored the obvious signs that it was looted. It was returned to Morgantina in early March, 2011.[11] It is thought that the sculpture actually portrays Persephone or Demeter, rather than Aphrodite.
The Getty kouros
The Getty kouros is an over-life-size statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros.[12] The dolomitic marble sculpture was also bought by Jiří Frel in 1985 for $7 million and first exhibited there in October 1986. If genuine, it is one of only twelve complete kouroi still extant. If fake, it exhibits a high degree of technical and artistic sophistication by an as-yet unidentified forger. Its status remains undetermined: today the museum's label reads "Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery".[12]
The Golden Wreath was bought by The Getty in 1994 for $1.15 million.[4] True was shown the wreath in a Swiss bank vault before purchasing and determined that it was "too dangerous" to purchase, because of its signs of looting. Under the advisement of The Getty's board, True purchased it through Christoph Leon, a Swiss art dealer.[4]
References
1. Combs, Jacob, and Morag Kersel. "A True Controversy: The Trial of Marion True and Its Lessons for Curators, Museums Boards, and National Governments." : 1–15. 2. Christopher Reynolds, "The puzzle of Marion True" Archived 2007-01-12 at the Wayback Machine, Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2005 3. Suzanne Muchnic, "Getty curator Marion True, indicted over acquisitions, has often spoken on ethical issues" Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2005 4. Mead, Rebecca. "Onward and Upward with the Arts: Den of Antiquity." The New Yorker 9 April 1007:1–8 5. Men's Vogue, November/December 2006, Vol. 2, No. 3, p. 46. 6. LATimes.com ~ "Getty lets her take fall, ex-curator says" 7. BBC NEWS, Getty to hand back 'looted art' 8. Intl. Herald Tribune "Ex-curator acquitted in case of Greek relic" 9. Jason Felch, "Charges dismissed against ex-Getty curator Marion True by Italian judge (updated)" Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2010 10. Flech, Jason, "The Getty Ship Aphrodite Statue to Sicily: The Iconic Statue, bought in 1988, is among 40 object of disputed origin repatriated." LA Times 23 March 2011 11. Morreale, Giovanni, "Chasing Aphrodite: Venus of Morgantina", Times of Sicily February 16, 2012 12. [J. Paul Getty Museum. Statue of a kouros. Retrieved September 2, 2008.]
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One of the world’s most respected curators vanished from the art world. Now she wants to tell her story. by Geoff Edgers The Washington Post August 22, 2015
Marion True in Newburyport, Mass., where she grew up and her mother still lives. The former curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum was indicted in 2005 by an Italian court for being part of a stolen-art ring. All charges were eventually dismissed, but her career was ruined. (Michele McDonald/for The Washington Post)
The reporters staked her out. The investigators said she conspired with crooked dealers. And her museum colleagues seemed content to watch her disappear, as if one of the world’s most powerful, respected and sought-after art historians deserved to be the only American curator brought to trial.
Ten years ago, Marion True, then curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles — the wealthiest museum in the world — was formally accused by the Italian government of taking part in a stolen-art ring. Within months, she would lose her job, her career and leave the country. Once a curator so coveted she turned down a plum offer from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, True vanished so completely that one former boss, Barry Munitz, admitted in an interview this summer that he had no idea “where she is or what she’s doing.”
J. Michael Padgett, the Princeton University Museum of Art’s curator of ancient art, spoke of her in the past tense when approached recently at a dinner toasting, of all people, the late dealer, Robert Hecht, who was brought to trial with True.
Except that Marion True is very much alive and now, for the first time in years, has agreed to talk about her professional exile. What’s more, True has roughed out several hundred pages of a potential memoir, a draft of which she shared with The Washington Post.
A decade after her downfall, True knows that she was singled out, with Hecht, by the Italians to strike fear in American museums. The strategy worked. The Getty and others, fearing prosecution, returned hundreds of objects worth millions of dollars.
True was never found guilty — the trial ended in 2010 without a judgment — and the curator maintains her innocence. But today, for the first time, she is talking openly about the way she and her museum-world colleagues operated. Yes, she did recommend the Getty acquire works she knew had to have been looted. That statement, though, comes with a qualifier:
If she found out where a work had been dug up from, she pushed for its return. In contrast, many of her colleagues did little, if anything, to research a work’s source. None of them were put on trial.
The pursuit of True was aided by raids of dealers and a massive leak of internal Getty documents to a pair of Los Angeles Times reporters. That paper trail linked looted sites in Italy to the museum’s Malibu galleries.
Now-retired Italian prosecutor Paolo Ferri, reached recently, admits that he never imagined True going to jail.
“She was on trial for one reason,” he said. “To show an example of what Italy could do.”
Marion True leaves the Rome courthouse in November 2005 during her trial on charges of knowingly acquiring lost antiquities for the Getty. (Andreas Solaro/Agence France-Press/Getty Images)
‘A shock to the system’
In her unpublished memoir, True charts her rise from working-class Newburyport, Mass., into the mysterious, swashbuckling universe of ancient art and, finally, into an Italian courtroom. She offers a rare glimpse into the often too-cozy-for-comfort relationships among museums, dealers and collectors. She describes the absurdity of being targeted. Because even True’s detractors knew about her efforts to create collecting standards in a profession that, for decades, operated with the ethical compass of a junk bond trader on 1980s Wall Street.
True’s trial, covered with great fanfare at its start, fizzled out quietly.
“I understand why the Italians did what they did,” True, 66, said in one of a series of interviews in Newburyport, where she maintains a modest, third-floor walkup so she can visit her 91-year-old mother. “It was very clever, and it was very mean, but at least I understand why. What I never understood is why American museums did what they did. And my colleagues and my bosses never, ever stood up for me. They acted as if I had done all this stuff on my own, which would have been impossible to do. They just vanished.”
Former Getty director John Walsh, reached this summer, said that he gave a deposition explaining why True, as a curator, should not have been held responsible for Getty acquisitions. Those purchases were made by the museum’s administrators and board. But his private defense offered little solace to True. As she notes, the Getty did little to support her publicly.
“I don’t think anybody stuck their neck out,” said Max Anderson, the director of the Dallas Museum of Art. “Her indictment was a shock to the system. Everybody was watching with concern for their own fate. I don’t think it was the finest hour of the profession.”
An exile’s memories
It is late one morning, and True has heard about the book-release party, at a Turkish restaurant in New York, to celebrate the publication of Hecht’s memoir. He was the brash, legendary figure who fashioned himself a “buccaneer” during decades of selling ancient art to museums, even when he had reason to believe the works had been looted.
American art dealer Robert Hecht, who was tried along with True, leaves a Rome court in 2006. (Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press)
She is trying to process the idea that the man charged with conspiring with her would now be celebrated over red wine, kebabs and calamari by the aging circle of curators she once called colleagues.
“Even Bob Hecht comes out of it with his book published,” True said.
In person, True is warm, funny and capable of chatting about everything from the Beatles to the proper way to grow a peony. She lives mainly in France now with her French husband, a retired architecture scholar. Her tone shifts when talk turns to the Getty. Unprintable words fly. Tears well up.
The Getty Villa in Malibu was built by John Paul Getty to re-create a first-century Roman villa. It opened to the public in 2006 after a $275 million renovation. The original was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. (Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images)
The Getty Villa, with its sprawling gardens, outdoor theater and galleries overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, was designed to re-create the feel of a 1st-century Roman home. The renovation of the Villa was her life’s work, an eight-year, $275 million project opened to the public in 2006. It is the main reason True turned down the Met when it offered her its top antiquities job.
True literally wrote the book on the Villa, a hardcover available for $39.95 in the museum gift shop. Her forced resignation in October 2005 came in the midst of the antiquities case but was technically for an ethical breach she admits she regrets, borrowing money (at 8.5 percent interest) for a second home from prominent museum donors Larry and Barbara Fleischman.
“I was a very happy person,” she says, looking down and beginning to cry. “I think I was good at what I did. I loved what I did. But when you know that you can’t do it anymore, then it’s over.”
‘Chasing Aphrodite’
So is it a good time to write a book? Even her closest friends wonder.
“It’s not like there’s something still active,” said Karen Manchester, curator of ancient art at the Art Institute of Chicago.
But then she talks about True’s influence, how she mentored Manchester, a junior curator at the Getty in the 1980s, on how to dress professionally and the proper way to carry herself around deep-pocketed collectors. She viewed True as a leader in the 1990s, testifying in Washington and speaking regularly at museum conferences about the need for stricter collection practices. That work sometimes angered colleagues at other museums.
“I’ve always wished and always thought of her as the phoenix who rises from the ashes,” Manchester said. “That there would be a role for her as a grand voice for the field. She has so much to give.”
Vartan Gregorian, the former Brown University president who now serves as president of the Carnegie Corp. of New York, believes a book would give True something she never got in a courtroom: A chance to properly defend herself.
“I told her, ‘If you don’t write your own history, others are going to write it,’ ” said Gregorian, who is also a former Getty trustee.
As of now, much of True’s story has been ceded to former Los Angeles Times reporters Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino. The pair relied on interviews and documents leaked from the Getty for their 2011 book, “Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum.” While no longer at the newspaper, Felch maintains a Web site for the book. In 2011, after reviewers argued that they had treated True too harshly, the authors posted a retort, noting that seven in 10 readers on their site “think she was guilty of trafficking in looted antiquities.”
This summer, True offered what, for the first time, is something close to a confession. No, she insists she did not conspire as part of an illicit trafficking ring, as the Italians alleged. But she did acquire art for the Getty that she knew had been stolen. How couldn’t she? It was everywhere.
A gold wreath from the 4th century B.C. was returned to Greece as a result of the True case. True says whenever a piece’s true ownership could be ascertained, the Getty would return it (Giorgos Nisiotis/Associated Press)
“The art is on the market,” True said, describing the Getty’s collecting approach. “We don’t know where it comes from. And until we know where it comes from, it’s better off in a museum collection. And when we know where it comes from, we will give it back.”
This final line, she said, is important. Other curators worried little about where a sculpture or painting came from as they competed to acquire it. But True said that whenever she discovered the source of a looted work, where it came from, the Getty returned it. That wasn’t the case with two of the most prominent museum collectors of her era, men she studied under, Cornelius Vermeule at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Met’s Dietrich von Bothmer.
Bothmer pushed the Met to purchase a 6th-century B.C. vase for $1 million in 1972 even though, True said, he once told her about the Etruscan tomb it had been stolen from. Confronted with this, the museum had to send the “Euphronios krater” back to Italy in 2006. Vermeule once acquired the top section of a Greek statue, known as the “Weary Herakles,” despite the fact that the bottom half was on display in a Turkish museum. Yet Vermeule insisted publicly in the 1990s that he had no way of knowing that the two halves, so obviously connected, were once joined. In 2011, three years after his death, the MFA returned its half to Turkey. Bothmer has also died, and never admitted publicly to buying looted art.
Cornelius Vermeule in 1972 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He claimed ignorance when he acquired the top half of the statue “Weary Herakles” when the bottom half was on exhibit in a Turkish museum. (Courtesy of Marion True/Courtesy Marion True)
The “Euphronios krater,” a 2,500-year-old Greek vase on the display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was returned to Italy in 2006. Curator Dietrich von Bothmer bought it from Robert Hecht, later True’s co-defendant. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)
The curators were both close to Hecht, who sold the “Euphronios krater” to the Met. And it was only natural that Hecht, who met True through Vermeule in the early 1970s, would count the rich Getty as one of his best clients.
Ferri, the retired Italian prosecutor, said he believed Vermeule and Bothmer — as well as former Getty directors John Walsh and Deborah Gribbon — were just as deserving as True of being prosecuted. But the information he had on True, he said, was fresher.
The rogue in the gallery
True arrived at the Getty as a curatorial assistant in 1982, a day remembered down to her first-day clothes (“my best French suit and a striped silk blouse”) and starting salary, $14,500. There, she encountered Jiri Frel, a former Met curator who built the Getty’s collection during the 1970s.
The Getty did not have the history of the Met or MFA. What it had was money.
Founded by American industrialist John Paul Getty, the original Villa opened in 1974. Getty never saw it. He died in 1976 while in England, leaving the museum $1.2 billion.
Even with that money available, Frel operated like a bookie during Super Bowl weekend.
“A complete rule breaker,” said Sally Hibbard, the Getty’s registrar for decades until her retirement in 2014. “He would sneak things into the museum at night, when I wasn’t there. He came from the Soviet bloc, and that was just a way of life for him.”
Frel lured donors by inflating estimated values of artworks to benefit their tax filings. He forged documents to create fake histories for purchased works. Forced out in 1984, Frel left behind works that, two decades later, would end up on Ferri’s list of demands. That mess would be left for his successor, Marion True.
On a cold night last winter, a vestige of this generation of curators gathered at a Turkish restaurant to toast Hecht.
The collector died in 2012 at the age of 92. His wife, Elizabeth, had recruited coin collector and Corning Glass family member Arthur Houghton, who served as a curator at the Getty in the 1980s, to write a lengthy foreword to a self-published memoir. The hardcover itself is a skimpy read, not even 70 pages. Hecht, who had been banned from multiple countries in the past for his dealings, offered an open letter meant to forward his main argument about antiquities. He did not traffic in stolen works. He “rescued” art by steering it to great museums.
True knew most of the minglers: Jasper Gaunt, the curator of ancient art at Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum; former Cleveland Museum of Art curator Arielle Kozloff; Princeton’s Padgett.
Houghton stood in the front of the room, toasting the known dealer in stolen works. In his foreword, Houghton described Hecht as “an adventurer, a buccaneer” whose life was “a series of capers, of quick-witted moves to buy and sell ancient art” by those who “knew how to evade the long arm of authority.”
“I have to be quite honest,” True said later about the gathering. “I would have loved to go because I think it would have shocked them.”
Marion True in Newburyport, away from museums and art-crowd parties. (Michele McDonald/For The Washington Post)
But she avoided the party, just as she avoids the classical sections of art museums. And as she considers her life in France, of gardening, cooking, family and cats, she begins to wonder whether her memoir might be one more thing to let go.
Last fall, True had been leaning toward whipping the manuscript into shape for a publisher. This summer, she has been pulling back.
“I felt I really had to put it down, from my perspective, as a kind of catharsis,” she said. “But I’ve been wavering. Do I really want to publish a book and turn my life upside down? I just don’t know that it’s worth it. I don’t know.”
Geoff Edgers, The Washington Post's national arts reporter, covers everything from fine arts to popular culture. He's the author of "Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song That Changed American Music Forever." He is also the host of "Edge of Fame," a podcast co-produced by WBUR Boston. Follow
Dietrich von Bothmer by Wikipedia Accessed: 10/18/22
[Jiri] Frel was born in Czechoslovakia 1923 as Jiri Frohlich to a Czech father and Austrian mother, the FBI records show. (The family changed the surname to Frel in 1940s, possibly to hide Jewish roots.) Frel entered the United States in 1969 as a visiting scholar at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies. The Institute had long been an intellectual home base for leading scholars, including Albert Einstein.
After a year at the Institute, Frel was granted political asylum with the help of lawyers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he had begun working as an research associate in the Greek and Roman Department under Dietrich von Bothmer. Interestingly, Frel cites additional assistance from George Kennan, the former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union and a leading historian at the IAS.
Dietrich von Bothmer Born: Dietrich Felix von Bothmer, October 26, 1918, Eisenach, Germany Died: October 12, 2009 (aged 90), Manhattan, New York, United States Spouse: Joyce de La Bégassière (née Blaffer) Academic background Education: Humboldt University of Berlin; Wadham College, Oxford; University of California, Berkeley Academic work Discipline: Art history Sub-discipline : Ancient Greek pottery Institutions: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Institute of Fine Arts, New York University Military career Allegiance United States Service/branch: United States Army Years of service: 1943–1946 Battles/wars: World War II; Pacific War Awards: Bronze Star Medal; Purple Heart
Dietrich Felix von Bothmer (pronounced BOAT-mare; October 26, 1918 – October 12, 2009) was a German-born American art historian, who spent six decades as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he developed into the world's leading specialist in the field of ancient Greek vases.
Early life and education
Bothmer was born in Eisenach, Germany on October 26, 1918. An ardent opponent of the Nazi dictatorship, he attended Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelms University and then went to Wadham College, Oxford in 1938 on the final Rhodes Scholarship awarded in Germany. There he worked with Sir John Beazley on his books Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters and Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, working collaboratively to group works by identifying the individual craftsmen and workshops that had created each of hundreds of Greek vases. He graduated in 1939 with a major in classical archaeology.[1]
A tour of museums in the United States in 1939 left Bothmer stuck there with the start of World War II. Due to his strong anti-Nazi sentiments, he refused to return to Germany, and narrowly escaped being sent back to Germany against his will. He earned his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley in 1944. Though not yet a citizen, in 1943 he volunteered for the United States Army. After 90 days in the U.S. Army, he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen in March, 1944. He served in the Pacific theater of operations, earning a Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart for a conspicuous act of bravery on August 11, 1944, while serving in the South Pacific, where, despite being wounded himself in the thigh, foot, and arm, he recovered a wounded comrade and carried him back three miles through enemy lines.[1]
Career
A room of the Bothmer Gallery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Following the completion of his military service, Bothmer was hired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1946, and was named as a curator in 1959.[2] By 1973, he was department chairman and he was named in 1990 as distinguished research curator.[1]
In 1972, together with the Director, Thomas Hoving, Bothmer argued in favor of the purchase of the Euphronios Krater, a vase used to mix wine with water that dated from the sixth century BCE. They convinced the museum's board to purchase the artifact for $1 million, which the museum funded through the sale of its coin collection. The Government of Italy demanded the object's return, citing claims that the vase had been taken illegally from an ancient Etruscan site near Rome. The krater was one of 20 pieces that the museum sent back to Italy in 2008 in exchange for multi-year loans of ancient artifacts that were put on display at the Met, as part of an agreement reached in 2006.[1]
The sale of a Euphronios Krater to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $1 million in 1972 catapulted [Robert E.] Hecht into instant fame and international problems. The Italian authorities claimed that the vase was excavated illegally in Cerveteri, north of Rome. An American Grand Jury, investigating the Euphronios Krater at the request of the Italian authorities — whose evidence came from a tomb robber — found the provenance unproven. In 2000, the Italian authorities found Hecht’s handwritten memoir in his house in Paris and those were used as evidence against him at his Italian criminal trial. In 2006, continuing pressure from Italy led Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to negotiate a deal that gave the Italian Republic ownership of the vase.
Bothmer's 1977 exhibit "Thracian Treasures from Bulgaria" covered twenty centuries of Thracian culture, with more than 500 art works dating back to the Copper Age.[3][4] The 1979 show "Greek Art of the Aegean Islands" included 191 pieces, of which 46 came from the Met and a similar number from the Louvre. The remainder came from several different museums in Greece, including the largest known Cycladic sculpture, dating to 2700 to 2300 BCE, on loan from the National Archaeological Museum, Athens.[5] A 1985 exhibition based on his research, "The Amasis Painter and his World: Vase Painting in Sixth Century B.C. Athens," included 65 works of a single artist who created his pottery 2,500 years before, the first to document the history of the work of a single craftsman from that ancient period as a one-man show.[6]
Bothmer's numerous published works in the field include the 1957 Amazons in Greek Art,[7] Ancient Art From New York Private Collections[8] and An Inquiry Into the Forgery of the Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (with Joseph V. Noble), both published in 1961, Greek Vase Painting: an Introduction[9] in 1972, his 1985 book The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-Century B.C. Athens, his 1991 book Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection, and in 1992, Euphronios, peintre: Actes de la journee d'etude organisee par l'Ecole du Louvre et le Departement des antiquites grecques, etrusques de l'Ecole du Louvre (French Edition).[10] He also contributed in 1983 to Wealth of the Ancient World (Hunt Art Collections),[11] Development of the Attic Black-Figure, Revised Edition (Sather Classical Lectures)[12] in 1986, and a wide variety of other publications.
Bothmer took a faculty position in 1965 at the Institute of Fine Arts,[1] the nation's top-ranked graduate program in art history, according to the National Research Council's 1994 study.
He was the recipient of numerous awards and citations, including a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. He was a member of the Académie française (one of only two Americans to have this honor), an honorary fellow of Wadham College, and the recipient of several honorary doctorates.[1]
Complementing his career as a curator and an academic, he served on the Art Advisory Council of the International Foundation for Art Research.[13]
Death
A resident of both the Manhattan district of New York City and Oyster Bay, New York, Dietrich von Bothmer died at age 90 on October 19, 2009, in Manhattan. He was survived by his wife, Joyce de La Bégassière (née Blaffer),[14] as well as by a son, Bernard von Bothmer of San Francisco, a daughter, Maria Villalba of New York City, three stepdaughters, five grandchildren, and five step-grandchildren. His brother was the renowned Egyptologist Bernard v. Bothmer,[15] who died in 1993.[16]
References
1. Grimes, William. "Dietrich von Bothmer, Curator and Art Historian, Dies at 90", The New York Times, October 15, 2009. Accessed October 26, 2009. 2. Staff. "Von Bothmer Gets New Museum Post", The New York Times, July 2, 1959. Accessed October 26, 2009. 3. Thracian Treasures from Bulgaria : Checklist of The Special Exhibition, June 11- September 4, 1977, coordinated by Dietrich von Bothmer. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1977. Retrieved February 24, 2018 – via Digital Collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 4. Barry, Ann. "Arts and Leisure Guide; Arts and Leisure Guide", The New York Times, July 3, 1977. Accessed October 26, 2009. 5. Kramer, Hilton. "Greece and France Join Met in Show Of Aegean Art; Aegean Art In Show At the Met", The New York Times, November 2, 1979. Accessed October 26, 2009. 6. Reif, Rita. "Antiques; Lyric World Of An Ancient Painter", The New York Times, October 6, 1985. Accessed October 26, 2009. 7. Amazons in Greek Art 8. Ancient Art From New York Private Collections 9. Greek Vase Painting: an Introduction 10. Euphronios, peintre: Actes de la journee d'etude organisee par l'Ecole du Louvre et le Departement des antiquites grecques, etrusques de l'Ecole du Louvre (French Edition) 11. Wealth of the Ancient World (Hunt Art Collections) 12. Development of the Attic Black-Figure, Revised Edition (Sather Classical Lectures) 13. International Foundation for Art Research, about IFAR 14. Obituary of Joyce Blaffer de La Bégassière von Bothmer, Dodge-Thomas Funeral Home. 15. Bernard v. Bothmer 16. Bernard v. Bothmer's obituary at The New York Times
External links
• Greek vase painting, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF) by Dietrich von Bothmer
The Getty kouros is an over-life-sized statue in the form of a late archaic Greek kouros.[1] The dolomitic marble sculpture was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, in 1985 for ten million dollars and first exhibited there in October 1986.[2][3][4]
Despite initial favourable scientific analysis of the patina and aging of the marble, the question of its authenticity has persisted from the beginning. Subsequent demonstration of an artificial means of creating the de-dolomitization observed on the stone has prompted a number of art historians to revise their opinions of the work. If genuine, it is one of only twelve extant complete kouroi. If fake, it exhibits a high degree of technical and artistic sophistication by an as-yet unidentified forger. Its status has remained undetermined: latterly the museum's label read "Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery".[5] Although the statue was removed from public display after the 2018 renovations, Dr. Timothy Potts, the current director of the Getty, reinforces that the kouros has still not been confirmed of its authenticity. Dr. Potts states that the sculpture was taken off of display due to the dubious nature around the work.[6]
Provenance
The kouros first appeared on the art market in 1983 when the Basel dealer Gianfranco Becchina offered the work to the Getty's curator of antiquities, Jiří Frel.
In the early 1980s, the antiquities department at the J. Paul Getty Museum was a hotbed of whispered political intrigue. Rumors swirled that the department’s Czech curator, Jiri Frel, was a Communist spy. And many believed the deputy curator, former State Department official Arthur Houghton, was a CIA plant tasked with keeping an eye on Frel’s activities....
As for Houghton and his ties to the CIA, the rumors were not far off. Before coming to the Getty in 1982, he had spent a decade working for the State Department, including time in its bureau of intelligence and research as a Mid East analyst. Houghton was fond of cultivating his image as a man of mystery. In truth, he had burned out on the diplomatic bureaucracy and chose a career that brought him closer to his long time passion — ancient coins. Houghton remains active in the field to this day.
Frel deposited the sculpture (then in seven pieces) at Pacific Palisades along with a number of documents purporting to attest to the statue's authenticity. These documents traced the provenance of the piece to a collection in Geneva of Dr. Jean Lauffenberger who, it was claimed, had bought it in 1930 from a Greek dealer. No find site or archaeological data was recorded. Amongst the papers was a suspect 1952 letter allegedly from Ernst Langlotz, then the preeminent scholar of Greek sculpture, remarking on the similarity of the kouros to the Anavyssos youth in Athens (NAMA 3851). Later inquiries by the Getty revealed that the postcode on the Langlotz letter did not exist until 1972, and that a bank account mentioned in a 1955 letter to an A.E. Bigenwald regarding repairs on the statue was not opened until 1963.[7]
The documentary history of the sculpture was evidently an elaborate fake and therefore there are no reliable facts about its recent history before 1983. At the time of acquisition, the Getty Villa's board of trustees split over the authenticity of the work. Federico Zeri, founding member of board of trustees and appointed by Getty himself, left the board in 1984 after his argument that the Getty kouros was a forgery and should not be bought was rejected.[8][9]
[Narrator] But Peter Nahum wasn't the only person who was suspicious. The cracks in Myatt and Drewe's con were beginning to show.
[Narrator] Giacometti was a Swiss Italian artist who moved to Paris, France in 1922. The Giacometti Institute in Paris is responsible, among other things, for cataloguing the artist's work, as well as uncovering and stopping would-be forgers. Mary Lisa Palmer, the director of the Giacometti Association, had been sent a catalogue by Sotheby's in the UK, featuring a Giacometti standing nude. She instantly questioned its authenticity.
[Mary Lisa Palmer, Director, Giacometti Association] The painting that I saw was inconsistent. Like, the head looked like a man's head on a woman's body; the background was poor; the strokes were wishy-washy. When an artist paints, there's a lot of energy that goes into the painting. When a person copies, he's copying the work of somebody else. It's not at all the same energy in the painting itself. Then it was signed, also; and the signature resembled other fake signatures, and not the real signature. When Albert Giacometti used to sign, he would sign quickly, you know. Get rid of it! He didn't like to sign paintings or drawings, so he did it quickly. The signature is very applied, you know, so copied. So I went to London to look at the work. I looked at the front of the canvas, the back of the canvas. I asked for an X-ray. Then I told the people at Sotheby's that I thought it was a fake. And then they told me, "But, ah -- there are experts that think that it's okay, and you will find documents at the Tate gallery proving the provenance as being correct." So I went to the Tate Gallery to look at these documents. I did see a photograph of this painting slipped into the Tate Gallery archives. And from that moment on, I felt that they were being tampered with. Basically, if the painting was fake, then the provenance had to be fake. Well, I sort of had to play the detective part, because people would not believe that the provenance was fake, because they were "very well done," quote unquote. I had to try to prove that the paper was not from the 50s. So I had to look at the watermarks, and contact the paper companies. I had to check with the libraries whether this catalogue was in their archives. I had to write to the printers, to see if they printed the catalogue. I had to check with another foundation whether they had received the same provenance material. And I found out that they had a different date for the same catalogue. I also wrote to the post office in England to see if the stamps were used in the 50s. I went on and on and on in this sort of detail.
[Narrator] That sort of detail resulted in Mary Lisa Palmer's success. Experts confirmed that the paper used in the suspected fake catalogues was not from the 1950s, as they stated. She now had evidence that the provenance was corrupt.
The Getty kouros is highly eclectic in style. The development of kouroi as delineated by Gisela Richter[10] suggests the date of the Getty youth diminishes from head to feet: At its top, the hair is braided into a wig-like mass of 14 strands, each of which ends in a triangular point. The closest parallel here is to the Sounion kouros (NAMA 2720) of the late 7th century/early 6th century, which also displays 14 braids, as does the New York kouros (NY Met. 32.11.1). However, the Getty kouros's hair exhibits a rigidity, very unlike the Sounion Group. Descending to the hands, the last joints of the fingers turn in at right angles to the thighs, recalling the Tenea kouros (Munich 168) of the 2nd quarter of the 6th century. Further down, a late archaic naturalism becomes more pronounced in the rendering of the feet similar to kouros No. 12 from the Ptoon sanctuary (Thebes 3), as is the broad oval plinth which in turn is comparable to a base found on the Acropolis. Both Ptoon 12 and the Acropolis base are assigned to the Group of Anavyssos-Ptoon 12 and dated to the third quarter of the 6th century. Anachronizing elements are not unknown in authentic kouroi, but the disparity of up to a century is a strikingly unusual feature of the Getty sculpture.
Technical analysis
Side view of the kouros
Despite being of Thasian marble, the kouros cannot be securely ascribed to an individual workshop of northern Greece nor indeed to any ancient regional school of sculpture. Archaic kouroi conform to a canon of measurement and proportion (albeit with strong local accents) to which the Getty example also adheres; a comparison of like elements in other kouroi is both a test of authenticity and additional clue to the origin of the sculpture. There is little in the tool marks, carving methods and detailing to contradict an ancient origin of the piece. Although there is a small sample with which to compare (some 200 fragments and only twelve complete statues of the same type) there are atypical aspects of the Getty work that may be observed. The oval plinth is an unusual shape and larger than in other examples, suggesting the figure was free-standing rather than fixed with lead in a separate base. Also, the ears are not symmetrical: they are at different heights with the left oblong and the right rounder, implying the sculptor was using two distinct schema or none at all.[11] Furthermore, there are a number of flaws in the marble, most prominently on the forehead, which the sculptor has worked around by parting the hair curls at the centre; ancient examples survive of projects being abandoned by sculptors when such flaws in the stone were revealed.[12]
Frontal view
Perhaps the most striking evidence suggestive of the kouros's antiquity is a subtlety regarding the direction of motion of the figure. Even though the youth presents square to the viewer, all kouroi have understated indicators of a turn either to the left or the right depending on where they were originally placed in the temple sanctuary; i.e., they would seem to turn towards the naos. In the case of the Getty youth the left foot is parallel with the step axis of the right foot rather than turning outwards as would occur if the figure were moving directly forwards. Therefore, the statue is making motion toward his right, which Ilse Kleemann asserts is "one of the strongest pieces of evidence of its authenticity".[13] Other features that suggest a similarity with known originals include the helicoid curls of the hair, closest in form to the west Cyclidian Kea kouros (NAMA 3686), the Corinthian form of the hands and the sloping shoulders akin to the Tenea kouros and the broad plinth and feet comparable to the Attic or Cyclidian Ptoon 12. That the Getty kouros cannot be identified with any one local atelier does not disqualify it as a genuine, but if real it admits a lectio difficilior into the corpus of archaic sculpture.
Lectio difficilior potior (Latin for "the more difficult reading is the stronger") is a main principle of textual criticism. Where different manuscripts conflict on a particular reading, the principle suggests that the more unusual one is more likely the original. The presupposition is that scribes would more often replace odd words and hard sayings with more familiar and less controversial ones, than vice versa.
-- Lectio difficilior potior, by Wikipedia
Some indication of tool marks remain on the work. Though the surface is weathered (or artificially abraded) and it is not clear if emery was used, there are heavy claw marks on the plinth and the use of a point in some of the finer detailing. For example, there are point marks in the outline of the curls, between the fingers and in the cleft of the buttocks, also traces of the point in the arches of the feet and at random over the plinth. Though the tools evident here (fine point, slope chisel, claw chisel) are not inappropriate for a late 6th century sculpture their application might be problematic. Stelios Triantis remarks, "no sculptor of kouroi would hollow out with a fine point, nor incise outlines with this tool".[14]
In 1990, Dr. Jeffrey Spier published the discovery of a kouros torso,[15] a certain forgery that exhibited notable technical similarities to the Getty kouros. After samples were taken that determined the fake torso was of the same dolomitic marble as the Getty piece, the torso was purchased by the museum for study purposes. The fake's sloping shoulders and upper arms, volume of chest, rendering of the hands and genitals all suggest the same hand as the Getty's example, although the aging had been crudely done with an acid bath and the application of iron oxide. Further investigation has shown the torso and the kouros are not from the same block and the sculpting techniques are dramatically different (down to the use of power tools on the torso).[16] Their relationship if any is still to be determined.
[T]o these four considerations one might add one final point, that of seriality. Seriality and repetitiveness can often be identified as markers of forgery. Forgers often fabricated more than one sample of their counterfeit products, which may now be inadvertently considered to be genuine artifacts in different parts of the world. For instance, in archaeological museums. So, of course, there are inscriptions which were produced in more than one copy in ancient times, but generally speaking, one should always be cautious when identical, or even slightly different texts, can be found on different physical objects. And this final aspect was already remarked in the 1990s when a similar tablet was detected by a colleague, Antonio Sartori, who saw it on sale in a shop in Paris. This second tablet was sold on the antiquarian market, so we don't know where it is today. And we only have a cast of it on kitchen foil, which was made for my colleague by the art dealer. Actually, a long investigation carried out both in libraries and in museums across Europe, has led me to discover that the copies of this inscribed tablet are not only two, but several. Some of them are still existing, while others are known only through manuscript tradition. So far, aside from the Tortello Tablet, and the lost Paris Tablet, I was able to locate three more copies of the same inscription. One in Arezzo, one in Madrid, and one more in Basel. To these three objects, one may add some others, which were published in different parts of the CIL of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, where they were unanimously judged as forged. In particular, the Eleventh volume of the Corpus, published by Eugen Bormann, and devoted two inscriptions from Aemilius ... and Etruria -- so from central and northern Italy -- is very rich with information. Bormann had spotted a group of nine small bronze tablets inscribed with different texts in Bologna. That's the entry that you're looking at now. And he defined them -- and I'm translating from the Latin -- several bronze tablets inscribed with false copies of genuine inscriptions: the tabellae aereae inscriptae exemplis falsis titulorum genuinorum. Well, he mentioned that he had personally seen them in the archaeological museum in Bologna, while formerly they belonged to the university collection of the same city. And you can see among these inscriptions -- in the fifth position -- a copy of the dedication to Druso. Unfortunately, despite numerous attempts, it has been impossible to locate this group of tablets.
The Getty commissioned two scientific studies on which it based its decision to buy the statue. The first was by Norman Herz, a professor of geology at the University of Georgia, who measured the carbon and oxygen isotope ratios, and traced the stone to the island of Thasos. The marble was found to have a composition of 88% dolomite and 12% calcite, by x-ray diffraction. His isotopic analysis revealed that δ18O = -2.37 and δ13C = +2.88, which from database comparison admitted one of five possible sources: Denizli, Doliana, Marmara, Mylasa, or Thasos-Acropolis. Further, trace element analysis of the kouros eliminated Denizli. With the high dolomite content Thasos was determined to be the likeliest source with a 90% probability.[17] The second test was by Stanley Margolis, a geology professor at the University of California at Davis. He showed that the dolomite surface of the sculpture had undergone a process called de-dolomitization, in which the magnesium content had been leached out, leaving a crust of calcite, along with other minerals. Margolis determined that this process could occur only over the course of many centuries and under natural conditions, and therefore could not be duplicated by a forger.
In the early 1990s, the marine chemist Miriam Kastner produced an experimental result which cast doubt on Margolis's thesis by artificially inducing de-dolomitization in the laboratory, a result since confirmed by Margolis. Although this does admit the possibility that the kouros was synthetically aged by a forger, the procedure is a complicated and time-consuming one. The unlikeliness of a forger using such experimental methods in what is still an uncertain science has prompted the Getty's antiquities conservator to remark "when you consider a forger actually repeating the procedure you begin to leave the realm of practicality".[18]
[Narrator] The Museum of ancient art in Basel is the only Museum in Switzerland to exhibit exclusively classical antiques. The two sculptures Stephan Lehmann believes to be highly suspicious, stood here, considered stars of the exhibition. Museum Director Andrea Bignasca has sent one of them to the workshop to have it examined once again by conservators.
[Music] The museum received the sculptures as part of a private legacy gift from the Ludwig Collection in Aachen. Stephan Lehmann thinks the sculpture is the work of the Spanish master.
[Andrea Bignasca, Basel Museum of Ancient Art] I have to say, this all surprised me. We didn't know that Lehmann was conducting such investigations, and that he had included our two bronze sculptures from the Ludwig Collection.
[Narrator] Their former owners Peter and Irene Ludwig, collected art and acquired this bronze sculpture on the art market. But the Museum has no information about exactly where it comes from. The idea of classical works with no known origin, or provenance, making their way into public museums via the art market, is something Stefan Lehmann deplores.
[Andrea Bignasca, Basel Museum of Ancient Art] Herr Lehmann is a classical archeologist. He's a professor at a university. He's a curator at the Archaeological Museum. But he's no specialist in bronze statues, although he seems to think so. What I don't like in this case is this broadside on me personally, on the Museum, on my colleagues. So far, there's absolutely no proof. So, I'm sticking to the version that these objects are original, classical, works of art.
[Stefan Lehmann, Archaeologist] Yes, of course, the museums are never amused -- obviously -- when important artifacts that are shown in their main chamber are cast into doubt. It always leads immediately to personal differences. That's normal. You can't avoid that entirely. But I think the question of whether they are original sculptures, or modern forgeries, is so important, that we have to be above these trifles.
[Narrator] Back at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Institute, preparations are underway for a second scan of the Swiss collector's Augustus. After the failure of the first attempt to get a CT scan, Material Scientist Harold Miller is now getting the bronze head x-rayed again in Europe's most powerful linear accelerator. Until now, no Museum collector was prepared to hand over a suspected forgery for such an examination. So no work ascribed to the Master has yet been proved fake by these scientific methods.
The scientists have to leave the hall, because of the extremely high radiation from the linear accelerator. The examination is focused on the metal alloy in the bronze sculpture. Is it really from antiquity? Does it have the same characteristics as a bronze statue made 2,000 years ago? one suspicion is that the forgers melt down ancient coins to cast new heads -- a clever approach.
[Man] What is this device?
[Harold Muller, Materials Scientist] It's a Perkin Elmer Detector, with 200 micrometer pixel pitch. We believe, because of a range of material characteristics that correspond with antiquity, that this sculpture is made of genuine ancient material. There is ancient material available for things like this, and it would not be an entirely new idea to use, or to have used, old material for forgeries.
[Narrator] This time, the process works. Muller looks at the cross-sectional images of the head, and he notices that the patina on the head is only on the outside surface. That's strange.
[Harold Muller, Materials Scientist] You can see that that this material has a different density from the material around it, which has a different alloy composition. We've carried out metallographic tests, meaning on a cross-section of the material, and the outer crust, and determined, for one thing, that the corrosion, which looks very bad to the naked eye, is only on the surface. That leads us to the conclusion that this artefact was created in modern times, and designed to look very old.
-- The Mystery Conman: The Murky Business of Counterfeit Antiques, directed by Sonje Storm
See also
• List of artworks with contested provenance
References
1. Getty Villa, Malibu, inv. no. 85.AA.40. 2. Thomas Hoving. False Impression, The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes, 1997, p. 298. 3. Sorensen, Lee. Frel, Jiří K. In The Dictionary of Art Historians. Accessed 28/8/2008. 4. MICHAEL KIMMELMAN. [1] In "ART; Absolutely Real? Absolutely Fake?". Accessed 26/1/2014 5. J. Paul Getty Museum. Statue of a kouros. Retrieved September 2, 2008. 6. L.A. Times Review: Something’s missing from the newly reinstalled antiquities collection at the Getty Villa retrieved 03/05/2020. 7. Marion True. The Getty Kouros: Background on the Problem, in The Getty Kouros Colloquium, 1993, p. 13. 8. Hanley, Anne (1998-10-07). "Obituary: Federico Zeri". The Independent. Retrieved 2014-01-09. 9. "Zeri, Federico". Dictionary of Art Historians. Retrieved 8 January 2014. 10. G.M.A. Richter. Kouroi: Archaic Greek Youths. A Study of the Development of the Kouros Type in Greek Sculpture. 1970. 11. I. Trianti. Four Kouroi in One?, in The Getty Kouros Colloquium, 1993. 12. In the quarries of Naxos at Apollonas, Melanes and Flerio. 13. Ilse Kleemann, On the Authenticity of the Getty Kouros, in The Getty Kouros Colloquium, 1993, p. 46 14. Stelios Triantis. Technical and Artistic Deficiencies of the Getty Kouros in The Getty Kouros Colloquium, p. 52. 15. J. Spier. "Blinded by Science", The Burlington Magazine, September 1990, pp. 623–631. 16. Marion True, op. cit, pp. 13–14. 17. Norman Herz and Marc Waelkens. Classical Marble, 1988, p. 311. 18. Michael Kimmelman Absolutely Real? Absolutely Fake?, NYT, August 4th, 1991. Accessed 29/8/2008
The “Getty Kouros” was removed from view at the museum after it was officially deemed to be a forgery. by Isaac Kaplan via The New York Times Apr 16, 2018 9:38AM
The authenticity of the kouros (a freestanding Greek sculpture of a naked youth) has been debated since the Getty acquired the object in the mid-1980s for around $9 million. Despite the controversy, the work remained on view at the Los Angeles museum, next to a plaque reading “Greek, about 530 B.C. or modern forgery,” the New York Times reported. But it will no longer be up to viewers to weigh whether the object is authentic or not. Following a renovation of the Getty Villa, the sculpture was moved to storage where it will be on view by appointment only. “It’s fake, so it’s not helpful to show it along with authentic material,” said Getty director Timothy Potts. The removal is the final chapter in a decades-long saga that began when the Getty museum performed a battery of scientific tests on the piece to confirm its authenticity prior to purchase, only to buy the work and watch the faith in its authenticity slowly erode over time, the Times reported in 1991. A chemical process that occurred on the exterior of the sculpture led scientists to believe the work must have been centuries old, but such a reaction was actually shown to be replicable in a lab.The additional investigation came after an indisputably fake torso similar to that of the Getty Kouros was discovered, causing some experts to reverse their position on the authenticity of the piece.
[T]o these four considerations one might add one final point, that of seriality. Seriality and repetitiveness can often be identified as markers of forgery. Forgers often fabricated more than one sample of their counterfeit products, which may now be inadvertently considered to be genuine artifacts in different parts of the world. For instance, in archaeological museums. So, of course, there are inscriptions which were produced in more than one copy in ancient times, but generally speaking, one should always be cautious when identical, or even slightly different texts, can be found on different physical objects. And this final aspect was already remarked in the 1990s when a similar tablet was detected by a colleague, Antonio Sartori, who saw it on sale in a shop in Paris. This second tablet was sold on the antiquarian market, so we don't know where it is today. And we only have a cast of it on kitchen foil, which was made for my colleague by the art dealer. Actually, a long investigation carried out both in libraries and in museums across Europe, has led me to discover that the copies of this inscribed tablet are not only two, but several. Some of them are still existing, while others are known only through manuscript tradition. So far, aside from the Tortello Tablet, and the lost Paris Tablet, I was able to locate three more copies of the same inscription. One in Arezzo, one in Madrid, and one more in Basel. To these three objects, one may add some others, which were published in different parts of the CIL of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, where they were unanimously judged as forged. In particular, the Eleventh volume of the Corpus, published by Eugen Bormann, and devoted two inscriptions from Aemilius ... and Etruria -- so from central and northern Italy -- is very rich with information. Bormann had spotted a group of nine small bronze tablets inscribed with different texts in Bologna. That's the entry that you're looking at now. And he defined them -- and I'm translating from the Latin -- several bronze tablets inscribed with false copies of genuine inscriptions: the tabellae aereae inscriptae exemplis falsis titulorum genuinorum. Well, he mentioned that he had personally seen them in the archaeological museum in Bologna, while formerly they belonged to the university collection of the same city. And you can see among these inscriptions -- in the fifth position -- a copy of the dedication to Druso. Unfortunately, despite numerous attempts, it has been impossible to locate this group of tablets.
New Findings by National Gallery of Art Suggest the Existence of a Studio of Vermeer by National Gallery of Art October 7, 2022
Press Release
A composite image of a color photograph of Johannes Vermeer’s "Girl with the Red Hat" (c. 1669) with an infrared reflectance image. National Gallery of Art
Washington, DC—In a press conference today, the National Gallery of Art will share groundbreaking new findings about Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) to be explored in the exhibition Vermeer’s Secrets, opening on October 8. These findings led an interdisciplinary team of curators, conservators, and scientists to determine that the painting Girl with a Flute was made by an associate of Vermeer [???!!!]—not by the Dutch artist himself, as was previously believed.
The idea that Vermeer worked with studio associates challenges the long-held belief that he was a lone genius and, instead, posits him as an instructor or mentor to the next generation of artists. In part because Vermeer’s oeuvre contains only about 35 accepted paintings, scholars have generally considered it unlikely that he had students or assistants.
With no surviving documents to provide evidence of a workshop—no records of pupils registered by the Delft painters’ guild, no mention of assistants in the notes of visitors to Vermeer’s studio—it was believed that he must have worked alone. Until now.
“The existence of other artists working with Johannes Vermeer is perhaps one of the most significant new findings about the artist to be discovered in decades. It fundamentally changes our understanding of Vermeer,” [???!!!] said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art. “I am incredibly proud of the interdisciplinary team of National Gallery staff who worked together to study these paintings, building on decades of research and using advanced scientific technology to uncover exciting discoveries that add new insight to what we know about the enigmatic artist.”
Research also led curators to determine that Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat was made at a turning point in the artist’s career. The painting shows Vermeer experimenting with new techniques—vivid colors, a bolder manner of applying the paint—that presage paintings produced in the final phase of his career. As a result, they believe the painting should be dated slightly later, to circa 1669 (the work was previously dated to circa 1666/1667).
Many of the findings expand our understanding of the earliest stages of Vermeer’s painting process. One of the most exciting discoveries, made by comparing the results of different scientific imaging techniques with microscopic analysis, was the realization that Vermeer began his paintings with broad strokes in a quickly applied underpaint that established a robust foundation for his characteristically smooth and refined surface paint.
Building on a half-century of previous technical study on Vermeer’s works at the National Gallery, researchers took advantage of the museum’s COVID-related closures in 2020/2021 to examine the museum’s four paintings by and attributed to Johannes Vermeer, which are rarely taken off view, especially at the same time. On view through January 8, 2023, Vermeer’s Secrets offers audiences a behind-the-scenes look at how National Gallery curators, conservators, and scientists investigated the museum’s four treasured paintings—as well as two 20th-century forgeries—to understand “what makes a Vermeer a Vermeer.” The exhibition outlines some of the most exciting findings along with scientific images of the paintings, and even one of the specialized technical instruments used to conduct the imaging.
Vermeer’s Studio
Following decades of study, the National Gallery team concluded that Girl with a Flute (c. 1669/1675) is not, in fact, by Johannes Vermeer. Instead, they believe, the painting was made by an associate of Vermeer—someone who understood the Dutch artist’s process and materials but was unable to completely master them. Exactly who that person might be remains to be determined, but the implication that Vermeer worked closely with other artists is significant,[???!!!] as it revises the long-held belief that Vermeer worked in isolation. The mystery artist could have been a pupil or apprentice, an amateur who paid Vermeer for lessons, a freelance painter hired on a project-by-project basis, or even a member of Vermeer’s family.
The team compared Girl with a Flute to Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat. Both are small paintings previously hypothesized to be a pair due to similarities in subject, size, and use of a wood panel support—unusual for Vermeer. However, the paint application in Girl with a Flute is very different from Girl with the Red Hat. Not only does it lack the precision for which Vermeer is known, but the artist seems not to have had Vermeer’s control: the brushwork is awkward, and the pigments used in the final paint are coarsely ground, giving the surface an almost granular character. Vermeer ground his pigments coarsely for his underpaint and more finely for the final paint layers to achieve their delicate surfaces. The artist of Girl with a Flute inexplicably reversed this order. Despite the different handling, microscopic pigment analysis showed that both compositions used the same pigments, even including green earth shadows of the face—an idiosyncratic feature characteristic of Vermeer’s paintings. Taken together, these findings clearly show that, although Vermeer did not paint Girl with a Flute, this artist was intimately familiar with Vermeer’s unique working methods.
Vermeer’s Bold Underpaint
A combination of microscopic analysis and advanced imaging techniques provides a greater understanding of exactly how Vermeer built up his paintings. Prior microscopic examination showed that the artist began with a monochrome painted sketch. Imaging spectroscopy and microscopic examination revealed a quickly applied bold underpaint to plot out forms, colors, and patterns of illumination within the composition. In Woman Holding a Balance, a false-color infrared reflectance image shows freely brushed highlights on the back wall, now hidden by the smoothly brushed final paint. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) imaging spectroscopy and microscopic paint analysis showed that Vermeer added a copper-containing material to hasten the drying of black underpaint. The XRF chemical element map for copper reveals Vermeer’s broad brushstrokes at this underpaint stage, a dramatic difference from his handling in the final paint.
By contrast, microscopic examination of the final paint layer shows that Vermeer used comparatively fluid paints to create his signature smooth surfaces. Together, the microscopic analysis of paint samples and the pigment maps obtained from imaging spectroscopy show how he combined pigments to create his remarkable surface effects. In A Lady Writing, Vermeer used as many as four different yellow pigments in the woman’s jacket sleeve alone.
Girl with the Red Hat
The new research led the team to recognize Girl with the Red Hat as a pivotal work that points to Vermeer’s late style. Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator and head of the department of northern European paintings, Alexandra Libby, associate curator in the department of northern European paintings, E. Melanie Gifford, retired research conservator of painting technology, and Dina Anchin, associate paintings conservator, determined that Girl with the Red Hat represents a turning point in Vermeer’s career. They point to this work as the artist’s experiment: the moment when he began to paint his final image with a schematic rendering of forms and exaggerated contrasts of dark and light—features he had previously limited to the underpaint, but that came to characterize his late style.
The National Gallery’s senior imaging scientist, John K. Delaney, imaging scientist Kathryn A. Dooley, and retired conservation scientist Lisha Deming Glinsman, were also able to create clearer images of the portrait of a man underneath Girl with the Red Hat, first discovered in an x-ray taken in the early 1970s. A better understanding of how the man was painted and some of the pigments used was obtained with reflectance and x-ray fluorescence imaging spectroscopies. Specifically, using x-ray fluorescence imaging spectroscopy, scientists mapped the use of pigments containing the chemical element lead in the composition. By processing the image to minimize materials present in the visible surface layer, they produced an image that clearly reveals details of the man’s broad-brimmed hat, long hair, white collar, and billowy cloak.
Research Team
Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator and head of the department of northern European paintings
Alexandra Libby, associate curator, department of northern European paintings
Dina Anchin, associate paintings conservator
E. Melanie Gifford, retired research conservator of painting technology
October 8, 2022–January 8, 2023 West Building, Ground Floor
Exhibition Organization and Collaborators
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art.
The exhibition is organized by Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator and head of the department of northern European paintings, Alexandra Libby, associate curator, department of northern European paintings, Kathryn A. Dooley, imaging scientist, John K. Delaney, senior imaging scientist, and Dina Anchin, associate paintings conservator, all of the National Gallery of Art.
Exhibition Overview
Vermeer’s Secrets, curated by Marjorie E. Wieseman and Alexandra Libby, offers visitors an inside look at how the National Gallery’s curators, conservators, and scientists work together to understand artists’ techniques, materials, and processes. In this instance, an intensive study of four paintings by and attributed to Johannes Vermeer yielded surprising information, which will be shared for the first time in the exhibition. The exhibition also includes two 20th-century forgeries, The Lacemaker (c. 1925) and The Smiling Girl (c. 1925), which were attributed to Vermeer when they first entered the museum’s collection in 1937 as part of Andrew Mellon’s original bequest, but were later determined not to be by the artist.
The juxtaposition of these two 20th-century works and the 17th-century Girl with a Flute with paintings firmly attributed to the Dutch artist—Woman Holding a Balance (c. 1664), A Lady Writing (c. 1665), and Girl with the Red Hat (c. 1669)—will show how curators draw on research from a range of disciplines to evaluate works of art, determine attributions, and understand the qualities that make a Vermeer a Vermeer.
The exhibition invites visitors to take a closer look at Vermeer’s paintings through vivid technical images made using innovative technologies pioneered by two leaders in the field of scientific imaging—the National Gallery’s John K. Delaney and Kathryn A. Dooley. Using hyperspectral reflectance imaging techniques first developed to map minerals for remote sensing of Earth and, subsequently, the moon and Mars, as well as x-ray fluorescence imaging spectroscopy, Delaney and Dooley were able to identify and map pigments—and also to reveal what lies beneath the surfaces of these paintings, including images of brushstrokes in the underpaint stage, some of which are shown in the exhibition.
Vermeer’s Secrets pairs those images with microsample analyses and x-ray fluorescence spot analyses by Melanie Gifford and Lisha Glinsman, which allowed the two to study the stages in Vermeer’s working methods. The exhibition shows how the seven-person team of National Gallery curators, conservators, and scientists drew on these findings to expand, or in some cases alter, our understanding of Vermeer and his working process.
Related Programming
Concerts Sonnambula November 13, 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. West Building, Main Floor, West Garden Court Registration is required and opens Friday, November 4 at noon at nga.gov/concerts
Celebrate the exhibition Vermeer’s Secrets with music from Johannes Vermeer’s lifetime, performed by the early music ensemble Sonnambula. In A Portrait in Music: Sounding the Dutch Baroque, Sonnambula explores the exceptional music of the Low Countries during the 17th century. Taking Dutch and Flemish paintings as inspiration, the ensemble presents five sonic portraits of musical life.
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Art Researchers Discover One of Dutch Artist Vermeer's Paintings is Not Actually His by Juliana Kim NPR News 10.08.22 4:18pm NPR News/ Sat, 08/10/2022 - 4:18pm
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Praised for being a lone genius, Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer is now believed to have had an associate — possibly an assistant or a student — who painted one of his most iconic works.
The discovery was made by a team of curators, conservators and scientists from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The painting in question, Girl with a Flute, along with his authenticated works for comparison, is on view at the museum in a new exhibition called Vermeer's Secrets.
"It fundamentally changes our understanding of Vermeer," Kaywin Feldman, the director of the National Gallery of Art, said in a press release.
Vermeer is known for capturing the subtle beauty of Dutch domestic life in the mid-17th century. He's most widely known for Girl with a Pearl Earring, which has been called the "Dutch Mona Lisa."
For a long time, scholars believed Vermeer worked alone. There were no records of students registered by the guild in Vermeer's hometown and no mention of assistants by visitors in his studio.
But over the last two years, researchers took advantage of the museum's COVID-related closures to take a closer look at Vermeer's artwork.
That's when the team concluded that Girl with a Flute could not have been made by Vermeer because the painting lacked the artist's signature precision and paint application.
The discovery is in part shocking because only about 35 known paintings have been attributed to Vermeer.
Han van Meegeren, Paris life, a far cry from his 17th century art but a truer picture of the life he preferred.
-- Lawrence Jeppson, "The Fabulous Frauds, Fascinating Tales of Great Art Forgeries."
Han van Meegeren Van Meegeren painting Jesus Among the Doctors in 1945 Born: Henricus Antonius van Meegeren, 10 October 1889, Deventer, Netherlands Died: 30 December 1947 (aged 58), Amsterdam, Netherlands Occupation: Painter, art forger Spouse(s): Anna de Voogt, (m. 1912; div. 1923); Jo Oerlemans (m. 1928) Children: Jacques Henri Emil
Henricus Antonius "Han" van Meegeren (Dutch pronunciation: [ɦɛnˈrikʏs ɑnˈtoːnijəs ˈɦɑɱ vɑˈmeːɣərə(n)]; 10 October 1889 – 30 December 1947)[1] was a Dutch painter and portraitist, considered one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century.[2] Van Meegeren became a national hero after World War II when it was revealed that he had sold a forged painting to Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.[3]
As a child, Van Meegeren developed an enthusiasm for the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, and he set out to become an artist. Art critics, however, decried his work as tired and derivative, and Van Meegeren felt that they had destroyed his career. He decided to prove his talent by forging paintings by 17th-century artists including Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch and Johannes Vermeer. The best art critics and experts of the time accepted the paintings as genuine and sometimes exquisite. His most successful forgery was Supper at Emmaus, created in 1937 while he was living in the south of France; the painting was hailed as a real Vermeer by leading experts of the day such as Dr Abraham Bredius.[4]
The Supper at Emmaus (1937)
During World War II, Göring traded 137 paintings for one of Van Meegeren's false Vermeers, and it became one of his most prized possessions. Following the war, Van Meegeren was arrested, as officials believed that he had sold Dutch cultural property to the Nazis. Facing a possible death penalty, Van Meegeren confessed to the less serious charge of forgery. He was convicted on falsification and fraud charges on 12 November 1947, after a brief but highly publicised trial, and was sentenced to one year in prison.[5] He did not serve out his sentence, however; he died 30 December 1947 in the Valerius Clinic in Amsterdam, after two heart attacks.[6] A biography in 1967 estimated that Van Meegeren duped buyers out of the equivalent of more than US$30 million (approximately US$254 million in 2022); his victims included the government of the Netherlands.[7][8]
Early years
Han (a diminutive version of Henri or Henricus) van Meegeren was born in 1889 as the third of five children of middle-class Roman Catholic parents in the provincial city of Deventer. He was the son of Augusta Louisa Henrietta Camps and Hendrikus Johannes van Meegeren, a French and history teacher at the Kweekschool (training college for schoolteachers) in the city of Deventer.[4][9]
Early on, Han felt neglected and misunderstood by his father, as the elder Van Meegeren strictly forbade his artistic development and constantly derided him. His father often forced him to write a hundred times,"I know nothing, I am nothing, I am capable of nothing."[10][11] While attending the Higher Burger School, he met teacher and painter Bartus Korteling (1853–1930) who became his mentor. Korteling had been inspired by Johannes Vermeer and showed Van Meegeren how Vermeer had manufactured and mixed his colours. Korteling had rejected the Impressionist movement and other modern trends as decadent, degenerate art, and his strong personal influence probably led van Meegeren to rebuff contemporary styles and paint exclusively in the style of the Dutch Golden Age.[12]
Han van Meegeren designed this boathouse (the building in the centre, adjoining an old tower in the town wall) for his Rowing Club D.D.S. while studying architecture in Delft from 1907 to 1913.
Van Meegeren's father did not share his son's love of art; instead, he compelled him to study architecture at the Technische Hogeschool (Delft Technical College) in Delft in 1907, the hometown of Johannes Vermeer.[4] He received drawing and painting lessons, as well. He easily passed his preliminary examinations but he never took the Ingenieurs (final) examination because he did not want to become an architect.[9] He nevertheless proved to be an apt architect and designed the clubhouse for his rowing club in Delft which still exists (see image).[9]
In 1913, Van Meegeren gave up his architecture studies and concentrated on drawing and painting at the art school in The Hague. On 8 January 1913, he received the prestigious Gold Medal from the Technical University in Delft for his Study of the Interior of the Church of Saint Lawrence (Laurenskerk) in Rotterdam.[10] The award was given every five years to an art student who created the best work, and was accompanied by a gold medal.
On 18 April 1912, Van Meegeren married fellow art student Anna de Voogt who was expecting their first child.[13] The couple initially lived with Anna's grandmother in Rijswijk, and their son Jacques Henri Emil was born there on 26 August 1912. Jacques van Meegeren also became a painter; he died on 26 October 1977 in Amsterdam.
Career as a legitimate painter
The Deer (or "Hertje") is one of Han van Meegeren's best-known original drawings.
In the summer of 1914, Van Meegeren moved his family to Scheveningen. That year, he completed the diploma examination at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.[9] The diploma allowed him to teach, and he took a position as the assistant to Professor Gips, the Professor of Drawing and Art History, for the small monthly salary of 75 guldens. In March 1915, his daughter Pauline was born, later called Inez.[9] To supplement his income, Han sketched posters and painted pictures for the commercial art trade, generally Christmas cards, still-life, landscapes, and portraits.[13] Many of these paintings are quite valuable today.[14]
Van Meegeren showed his first paintings publicly in The Hague, where they were exhibited from April to May 1917 at the Kunstzaal Pictura.[15] In December 1919, he was accepted as a select member by the Haagse Kunstkring, an exclusive society of writers and painters who met weekly on the premises of the Ridderzaal. Although he had been accepted, he was ultimately denied the position of chairman.[16] He painted the tame roe deer belonging to Princess Juliana in his studio at The Hague, opposite the Royal Palace Huis ten Bosch.[13][14] He made many sketches and drawings of the deer, and painted Hertje (The fawn) in 1921, which became quite popular in the Netherlands. He undertook numerous journeys to Belgium, France, Italy, and England, and acquired a name for himself as a talented portraitist. He earned stately fees through commissions from English and American socialites who spent their winter vacations on the Côte d'Azur. His clients were impressed by his understanding of the 17th-century techniques of the Dutch masters. Throughout his life, Van Meegeren signed his own paintings with his own signature.[17]
By all accounts, infidelity[who?] was responsible for the breakup of Van Meegeren's marriage to Anna de Voogt; the couple were divorced on 19 July 1923.[18][19] Anna left with the children and moved to Paris where Van Meegeren visited his children from time to time. He now dedicated himself to portraiture and began producing forgeries to increase his income.[20]
He married actress Johanna Theresia Oerlemans in Woerden in 1928, with whom he had been living for the past three years. Johanna was also known under her stage name of Jo van Walraven, and she had previously been married to art critic and journalist Dr. C H. de Boer (Carel de Boer). She brought their daughter Viola into the Van Meegeren household.[13]
The forgeries
Han van Meegeren's mansion Primavera in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin where he painted his forgery The Supper at Emmaus in 1936, which sold for about US$300,000
Van Meegeren had become a well-known painter in the Netherlands, and Hertje (1921) and Straatzangers (1928) were particularly popular.[13] His first legitimate copies were painted in 1923, his Laughing Cavalier and Happy Smoker, both in the style of Frans Hals. By 1928, the similarity of Van Meegeren's paintings to those of the Old Masters began to draw the reproach of Dutch art critics, who were more interested in Cubism, Surrealism, and other modern movements. It was said that his gift was an imitation and that his talent was limited outside of copying other artists' work.[11]
One critic wrote that he was "a gifted technician who has made a sort of composite facsimile of the Renaissance school, he has every virtue except originality."[21] In response to these comments, Van Meegeren published a series of aggressive articles in his monthly magazine De Kemphaan ("The Ruff"). Jonathan Lopez writes in his book on the forger that in the magazine he "denounced modern painting as 'art-Bolshevism,' described its proponents as a 'slimy bunch of woman-haters and negro-lovers,' and invoked the image of 'a Jew with a handcart' as a symbol for the international art market."[4][22]
His father was said to have once told him, "You are a cheat and always will be." He sent a signed copy of his own art book to Adolf Hitler, which turned up in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin complete with an inscription (in German): "To my beloved Führer in grateful tribute, from H. van Meegeren, Laren, North Holland, 1942". He only admitted the signature was his own, although the entire inscription was by the same hand.
Along with journalist Jan Ubink, this periodical was published between April 1928 and March 1930.[23]
Van Meegeren felt that his genius had been misjudged, and he set out to prove to the art critics that he could more than copy the Dutch Masters; he would produce a work so magnificent that it would rival theirs. He moved with Jo to the South of France and began preparations for this ultimate forgery, which took him from 1932 to 1937. In a series of early exercises, he forged works by Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch, and Johannes Vermeer.[24] Finally, he chose to forge a painting by Vermeer as his masterpiece. Vermeer had not been particularly well known until the beginning of the twentieth century; his works were both extremely valuable and scarce, as only about 35 had survived.[25]
Van Meegeren delved into the biographies of the Old Masters, studying their lives, occupations, trademark techniques, and catalogues. In October 1932, art connoisseur and Rembrandt expert Dr. Abraham Bredius published an article about two recently discovered alleged Vermeer paintings, which he defined as Landscape and Man and Woman at a Spinet. He claimed the former to be a fake, and described it as "a landscape of the eighteenth century into which had been imported scraps of the 'View of Delft'" (mostly the Delft New Church's tower). On the contrary, the Man and Woman at a Spinet not only was judged as an "authentic Vermeer", but also "very beautiful", and "one of the finest gems of the master's œuvre".[26] The painting was later sold to Amsterdam banker Dr. Fritz Mannheimer.
The "perfect forgery"
In 1932, Van Meegeren moved to the village of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin with his wife. There he rented a furnished mansion called "Primavera" and set out to define the chemical and technical procedures that would be necessary to create his perfect forgeries. He bought authentic 17th century canvases and mixed his own paints from raw materials (such as lapis lazuli, white lead, indigo, and cinnabar) using old formulas to ensure that they could pass as authentic. In addition, he created his own badger-hair paintbrushes similar to those that Vermeer was known to have used. He came up with a scheme of using phenol formaldehyde (Bakelite) to cause the paints to harden after application, making the paintings appear as if they were 300 years old. Van Meegeren would first mix his paints with lilac oil, to stop the colours from fading or yellowing in heat. (This caused his studio to smell so strongly of lilacs that he kept a vase of fresh lilacs nearby so that visitors wouldn't be suspicious.)[27] Then, after completing a painting, he would bake it at 100 °C (212 °F) to 120 °C (248 °F) to harden the paint, and then roll it over a cylinder to increase the cracks. Later, he would wash the painting in black India ink to fill in the cracks.[5][28]
It took Van Meegeren six years to work out his techniques, but ultimately he was pleased with his work on both artistic and deceptive levels. Two of these trial paintings were painted as if by Vermeer: Lady Reading Music, after the genuine paintings Woman in Blue Reading a Letter at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam;
Left: Vermeer's "Woman in Blue Reading a Letter" (1666-1664); Right: "Woman Reading Music" by Han van Meegeren, 1935-1936.
Woman Reading Music 57 x 48 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1935-36
Left: A detail of head of Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter; Right: a similar figure in Woman Reading by Van Meegeren, both currently housed in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
and Lady Playing Music, after Vermeer's Woman With a Lute Near a Window hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Left: Woman with a Lute near a Window; Right: Girl Playing a Lute Han van Meegeren
Woman Playing Music 63 x 49 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1935-36
Van Meegeren did not sell these paintings; both are now at the Rijksmuseum.[29]
Following a journey to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Van Meegeren painted The Supper at Emmaus using the lapis lazuli (ultramarine blues) and yellows used by Johannes Vermeer and other Dutch Golden Age painters. In 1934 Van Meegeren had bought a seventeenth century mediocre Dutch painting, The Awakening of Lazarus, and on this foundation he created his masterpiece à la Vermeer. The experts assumed that Vermeer had studied in Italy, so Van Meegeren used the version of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus located at Italy's Pinacoteca di Brera as a model.[13] He had always wanted to walk in the steps of the masters, and he felt that his forgery was a fine work in its own right. He gave it to his friend, attorney C. A. Boon, telling him that it was a genuine Vermeer, and asked him to show it to Dr. Abraham Bredius, the art historian, in Monaco. Bredius examined the forgery in September 1937 and, writing in The Burlington Magazine, he accepted it as a genuine Vermeer and praised it very highly as "the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft".[30][4] The usually required evidences, such as resilience of colours against chemical solutions, white lead analysis, x-rays images, micro-spectroscopy of the colouring substances, confirmed it to be an authentic Vermeer.[31]
The painting was purchased by The Rembrandt Society for fl.520,000 (€235,000 or about €4,640,000 today),[32] with the aid of wealthy shipowner Willem van der Vorm, and donated to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. In 1938, the piece was highlighted in a special exhibition in occasion of Queen Wilhelmina's Jubilee at a Rotterdam museum, along with 450 Dutch old masters dating from 1400 to 1800. A. Feulner wrote in the "Magazine for [the] History of Art", "In the rather isolated area in which the Vermeer picture hung, it was as quiet as in a chapel. The feeling of the consecration overflows on the visitors, although the picture has no ties to ritual or church", and despite the presence of masterpieces of Rembrandt and Grünewald, it was defined as "the spiritual centre" of the whole exhibition.[33][31]
Painting The Last Supper I by Han van Meegeren on 11th art and antiques fair in Rotterdam August 31, 1984. - In the summer of 1938, van Meegeren moved to Nice. 1939 he painted The Last Supper I in the style of Vermeer.
The Last Supper (1st version) 146 x 267 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1938-39
The Last Supper (2nd version) 174 x 244 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1940-41
At one point Van Meegeren stole directly from Vermeer, using the head of the Girl with a Pearl Earring for his head of Saint John
In the summer of 1938, Van Meegeren moved to Nice, using the proceeds from the sale of The Supper at Emmaus to buy a 12-bedroom estate at Les Arènes de Cimiez. On the walls of the estate hung several genuine Old Masters. Two of his better forgeries were made here, Interior with Card Players and Interior with Drinkers, both displaying the signature of Pieter de Hooch. [34]
The Card Players, 1938-39, HVM forgery, Museum Boymans
Interior with Drinkers; A Drinking Party
During his time in Nice, he painted his Last Supper I in the style of Vermeer.
He returned to the Netherlands in September 1939 as the Second World War threatened. He remained at a hotel in Amsterdam for several months and moved to the village of Laren in 1940. Throughout 1941, Van Meegeren issued his designs, which he published in 1942 as a large and luxurious book entitled Han van Meegeren: Teekeningen I (Drawings nr I). He also created several forgeries during this time, including The Head of Christ, The Last Supper II, The Blessing of Jacob, The Adulteress, and The Washing of the Feet—all in the manner of Vermeer. On 18 December 1943, he divorced his wife, but this was only a formality; the couple remained together, but a large share of his capital was transferred to her accounts as a safeguard against the uncertainties of the war.[35]
In December 1943, the Van Meegerens moved to Amsterdam where they took up residence in the exclusive Keizersgracht 321.[36]
321 Keizersgracht, Amsterdam
His forgeries had earned him between 5.5 and 7.5 million guilders (or about US$25–30 million today).[37][38] He used this money to purchase a large amount of real estate, jewellery, and works of art, and to further his luxurious lifestyle. In a 1946 interview, he told Marie Louise Doudart de la Grée that he owned 52 houses and 15 country houses around Laren, among them grachtenhuizen, mansions along Amsterdam's canals.[10]
Hermann Göring
Han van Meegeren's Jesus among the Doctors, also called Young Christ in the Temple (1945).
In 1942, during the German occupation of the Netherlands, one of Van Meegeren's agents sold the Vermeer forgery Christ with the Adulteress to Nazi banker and art dealer Alois Miedl. Experts could probably have identified it as a forgery; as Van Meegeren's health declined, so did the quality of his work. He chain-smoked, drank heavily, and became addicted to morphine-laced sleeping pills. However, there were no genuine Vermeers available for comparison, since most museum collections were in protective storage as a prevention against war damage.[39]
Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring traded 137 looted paintings for Christ with the Adulteress,[40] and showcased it at his residence in Carinhall (about 65 kilometers; 40 miles north of Berlin). On 25 August 1943, Göring hid his collection of looted artwork, including Christ with the Adulteress, in an Austrian salt mine, along with 6,750 other pieces of artwork looted by the Nazis. On 17 May 1945, Allied forces entered the salt mine and Captain Harry Anderson discovered the painting.[41][failed verification]
In May 1945, the Allied forces questioned Miedl regarding the newly discovered Vermeer. Based on Miedl's confession, the painting was traced back to Van Meegeren. On 29 May 1945, he was arrested and charged with fraud and aiding and abetting the enemy.
Han Van Meegeren: This Dutch painter (1889-1947), is probably the best-known forger of the 20th century. At the end of World War II, an Allied art commission discovered a previously unknown work of Jan Vermeer in the collection of Nazi leader Hermann Goering. The sale of the painting was traced to van Meegeren, who was charged in May 1945 with selling a Dutch national treasure and collaborating with the enemy. Van Meegeren subsequently confessed to having forged the painting, a less serious offense; and to prove it he painted another “Vermeer” in his prison cell. In all, van Meegeren is known to have produced 14 forgeries of works by Vermeer and Pieter De Hooch, several of which had been proclaimed masterpieces by scholars before it was learned that they all were fakes. http://www.mystudios.com/gallery/forger ... ry-17.html
He was remanded to the Weteringschans prison as an alleged Nazi collaborator and plunderer of Dutch cultural property, threatened by the authorities with the death penalty.[21] He labored over his predicament, but eventually confessed to forging paintings attributed to Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch.[14] He exclaimed, "The painting in Göring's hands is not, as you assume, a Vermeer of Delft, but a Van Meegeren! I painted the picture!"[42] It took some time to verify this and Van Meegeren was detained for several months in the Headquarters of the Military Command at Herengracht 458 in Amsterdam.[43]
Van Meegeren painted his last forgery between July and December 1945 in the presence of reporters and court-appointed witnesses: Jesus among the Doctors, also called Young Christ in the Temple[44] in the style of Vermeer.[45][46] After completing the painting, he was transferred to the fortress prison Blauwkapel. Van Meegeren was released from prison in January or February 1946.
Trial and prison sentence
Han van Meegeren listens to the evidence at his trial in Amsterdam. In the background is The Blessing of Jacob, sold in 1942 as the work of Vermeer.
Van Meegeren (center) with his hands on his head
The trial of Han van Meegeren began on 29 October 1947 in Room 4 of the Regional Court in Amsterdam.[47] The collaboration charges had been dropped, since the expert panel had found that the supposed Vermeer sold to Hermann Göring had been a forgery and was, therefore, not the cultural property of the Netherlands. Public prosecutor H. A. Wassenbergh brought charges of forgery and fraud and demanded a sentence of two years in prison.[5]
Evidence against Han van Meegeren: a collection of pigments.
The court commissioned an international group of experts to address the authenticity of Van Meegeren's paintings. The commission included curators, professors, and doctors from the Netherlands, Belgium, and England, and was led by the director of the chemical laboratory at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Paul B. Coremans.[5][48][49] The commission examined the eight Vermeer and Frans Hals paintings which Van Meegeren had identified as forgeries. With the help of the commission, Dr Coremans was able to determine the chemical composition of van Meegeren's paints.
He found that Van Meegeren had prepared the paints by using the phenolformaldehyde resins Bakelite and Albertol as paint hardeners.[5][19][50] A bottle with exactly that ingredient had been found in Van Meegeren's studio. This chemical component was introduced and manufactured in the 20th century, proving that the alleged works by Vermeer and Frans Hals examined by the commission were in fact fabricated by Van Meegeren.[51]
The commission's other findings suggested that the dust in the craquelure was too homogeneous to be of natural origin. The matter found in the craquelure appeared to come from India ink, which had accumulated even in areas that natural dirt or dust would never have reached. The paint had become so hard that alcohol, strong acids, and bases did not attack the surface, a clear indication that the surface had not been formed in a natural manner. The craquelure on the surface did not always match that in the ground layer, which would certainly have been the case with a natural craquelure. Thus, the test results obtained by the commission appeared to confirm that the works were forgeries created by Van Meegeren, but their authenticity continued to be debated by some of the experts until 1967 and 1977, when new investigative techniques were used to analyze the paintings (see below).
On 12 November 1947, the Fourth Chamber of the Amsterdam Regional Court found Han van Meegeren guilty of forgery and fraud, and sentenced him to a minimal one year in prison.[52]
Death
While waiting to be moved to prison, Van Meegeren returned to his house at 321 Keizersgracht, where his health continued to decline. During this last month of his life, he strolled freely around his neighbourhood.[53]
Van Meegeren suffered a heart attack on 26 November 1947, the last day to appeal the ruling, and was rushed to the Valeriuskliniek, a hospital in Amsterdam.[54] While at the hospital, he suffered a second heart attack on 29 December, and was pronounced dead at 5:00 pm on 30 December 1947 at the age of 58. Soon after his death, a plaster death mask was made, which was acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 2014.[55] His family and several hundred of his friends attended his funeral at the Driehuis Westerveld Crematorium chapel. In 1948, his urn was buried in the general cemetery in the village of Diepenveen (municipality of Deventer).[56]
Aftermath
After his death, the court ruled that Van Meegeren's estate be auctioned and the proceeds from his property and the sale of his counterfeits be used to refund the buyers of his works and to pay income taxes on the sale of his paintings. Van Meegeren had filed for bankruptcy in December 1945. On 5 and 6 September 1950, the furniture and other possessions in his Amsterdam house at Keizersgracht 321 were auctioned by order of the court, along with 738 other pieces of furniture and works of art, including numerous paintings by old and new masters from his private collection. The house was auctioned separately on 4 September, estimated to be worth 65,000 guilders.
The proceeds of the sale together with the house amounted to 123,000 guilders. Van Meegeren's unsigned The Last Supper I was bought for 2,300 guilders, while Jesus among the Doctors (which Van Meegeren had painted while in detention) sold for 3,000 guilders (about US$800 or about US$7,000 today.)[37] Today the painting hangs in a Johannesburg church. The sale of the entire estate amounted to 242,000 guilders[57] (US$60,000, or about US$500,000 today).[37]
Throughout his trial and bankruptcy, Van Meegeren maintained that his second wife Jo had nothing to do with the creation and sale of his forgeries. A large part of his considerable wealth, the estimated profits of his forgery having exceeded US$50 million in today's value,[58] had been transferred to her when they were divorced during the war, and the money would have been confiscated if she had been ruled to be an accomplice. Van Meegeren told the same story to all authors, journalists, and biographers: "Jo didn't know", and apparently most believed him. Some biographers believe, however, that Jo must have known the truth.[11] Her involvement was never proven and she was able to keep her substantial capital. Jo outlived her husband by many years, in luxury, until her death at the age of 91.
M. Jean Decoen's objection
M. Jean Decoen, a Brussels art expert and restorer, stated in his 1951 book he believed The Supper at Emmaus and The Last Supper II to be genuine Vermeers. Decoen went on to state that conclusions of Dr. Paul Coremans's panel of experts were wrong and that the paintings should again be examined. He also claimed in the book that Van Meegeren used these paintings as a model for his forgeries.[59][60] Daniel George Van Beuningen was the buyer of The Last Supper II, Interior with Drinkers, and The Head of Christ, and he demanded that Dr. Paul Coremans publicly admit that he had erred in his analysis. Coremans refused and van Beuningen sued him, alleging that Coremans's wrongful branding of The Last Supper II diminished the value of his "Vermeer" and asking for compensation of £500,000 (about US$1.3 million or about US$10 million today).[37]
The first trial in Brussels was won by Coremans just because the court adopted the same reasoning of the court ruling at the time of the Amsterdam trial against Van Meegeren. A second trial was set for 2 June 1955 but was delayed owing to Van Beuningen's death on 29 May 1955. In 1958 the court heard the case on behalf of Van Beuningen's heirs. Coremans managed to give the definitive evidence of the forgeries by showing a photograph of a Hunting Scene, attributed to A. Hondius, exactly the same scene which was visible with X-ray under the surface of the alleged Vermeer's Last Supper. Moreover, Coremans brought a witness to the courtroom who confirmed that Van Meegeren bought the Hunt scene in 1940.[61] The court found in favour of Coremans, and the findings of his commission were upheld.[62]
In 1967, the Artists Material Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh examined several of the "Vermeers" in their collection, under the direction of Robert Feller and Bernard Keisch. The examination confirmed that several of their paintings were in fact created using materials invented in the 20th century. They concluded that the "Vermeers" in their possession were modern and could thus be Van Meegeren forgeries. This confirmed the findings of the 1946 Coremans commission, and refuted the claims made by M. Jean Decoen.[63] The test results obtained by the Carnegie Mellon team are summarized below.
Han van Meegeren knew that white lead was used during Vermeer's time, but of course he had to obtain his stocks through the modern colour trade, which had changed significantly since the 17th century. During Vermeer's time, Dutch lead was mined from deposits located in the Low Countries; however, by the 19th century, most lead was imported from Australia and the Americas, and differed from the white lead that Vermeer would have used both in the isotope composition of the lead and in the content of trace elements found in the ores. Dutch white lead was extracted from ores containing high levels of trace elements of silver and antimony,[64] while the modern white lead used by Van Meegeren contained neither silver nor antimony, as those elements are separated from the lead during the modern smelting process.[65]
Forgeries in which modern lead or white lead pigment has been used can be recognized by using a technique called Pb(Lead)-210-Dating.[66] Pb-210 is a naturally occurring radioactive isotope of lead that is part of the uranium-238 Radioactive decay series, and has a half-life of 22.3 years. To determine the amount of Pb-210, the alpha radiation emitted by another element, polonium-210 (Po-210), is measured.[67] Thus it is possible to estimate the age of a painting, within a few years' span, by extrapolating the Pb-210 content present in the paint used to create the painting.[65][68]
The white lead in the painting The Supper at Emmaus had polonium-210 values of 8.5±1.4 and radium-226 (part of the uranium-238 radioactive decay series) values of 0.8±0.3. In contrast, the white lead found in Dutch paintings from 1600 to 1660 had polonium-210 values of 0.23±0.27 and radium-226 values of 0.40±0.47.[63]
In 1977, another investigation was undertaken by the States forensic labs of the Netherlands using up-to-date techniques, including gas chromatography, to formally confirm the origin of six van Meegeren forgeries that had been alleged to be genuine Vermeers, including the Emmaus and the Last Supper. The conclusions of the 1946 commission were again reaffirmed and upheld by the Dutch judicial system.[69]
In 1998, A&E ran a program called Scams, Schemes & Scoundrels highlighting Van Meegeren's life and art forgeries, many of which had been confiscated as Nazi loot. The program was hosted by skeptic James Randi and also featured the stories of Victor Lustig and Soapy Smith.
In July 2011, the BBC TV programme Fake or Fortune investigated a copy of Dirck van Baburen's The Procuress owned by the Courtauld Institute.[70] Opinion had been divided as to whether it was a 17th-century studio work or a Van Meegeren fake.[70] The programme used chemical analysis of the paint to show that it contained bakelite and thus confirmed that the painting was a 20th-century fake.[70]
A collection of genuine and fake signatures of Han van Meegeren
Van Meegeren played different roles, some of which were shrouded in fraudulent intentions, as he sought to fulfill his goal of besting his critics. His father was said to have once told him, "You are a cheat and always will be."[71] He sent a signed copy of his own art book to Adolf Hitler, which turned up in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin complete with an inscription (in German): "To my beloved Führer in grateful tribute, from H. van Meegeren, Laren, North Holland, 1942". He only admitted the signature was his own, although the entire inscription was by the same hand.[4][22] (The book by Jonathan Lopez confirmed the accuracy of Jan Spierdijk's article in De Waarheid in which Spierdijk reported details about Van Meegeren's book Tekeningen 1 being found in Hitler's library.) He bought up homes of several departed Jewish families in Amsterdam and held lavish parties while much of the country was hungry. On the other hand, his brothers and sisters perceived him as loyal, generous, and affectionate, and he was always loving and helpful to his own children.
In 2008, Harvard-trained art historian Jonathan Lopez had become fluent in Dutch and published The Man Who Made Vermeers, Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han Van Meegeren. His extensive research confirmed that Van Meegeren started to make forgeries, not so much by feeling misunderstood and undervalued by art critics as for the income that it generated, income which he needed to support his addictions and promiscuity.
Van Meegeren continued to paint after he was released from prison, signing his works with his own name. His new-found profile ensured quick sales of his new paintings, often selling at prices that were many times higher than before he had been unmasked as a forger. Van Meegeren also told the news media that he had "an offer from a Manhattan gallery to come to the U.S. and paint portraits 'in the 17th-century manner' at US$6,000 a throw."[72]
A Dutch opinion poll conducted in October 1947 placed Han van Meegeren's popularity second in the nation, behind only the Prime Minister's and slightly ahead of Prince Bernhard, the husband of Princess Juliana.[73] The Dutch people viewed Van Meegeren as a cunning trickster who had successfully fooled the Dutch art experts and, more importantly, Hermann Göring himself. In fact, according to a contemporary account, Göring was informed that his "Vermeer" was actually a forgery and "[Göring] looked as if for the first time he had discovered there was evil in the world".[21] Lopez, however, suggests Göring may never have known the painting was a fake.[4]
Lopez indicates that Han van Meegeren's defence during his trial in Amsterdam was a masterpiece of trickery, forging his own personality into a true Dutchman eager to trick his critics and also the Dutch people by pretending that he sold Christ and the Adulteress, a fake Vermeer, to Göring because he wanted to teach the Nazi a lesson.[citation needed]
The Woman Taken in Adultery 96 x 88 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1941-42
Van Meegeren remains one of the most ingenious art counterfeiters of the 20th century.[38] After his trial, however, he declared, "My triumph as a counterfeiter was my defeat as [a] creative artist."[74]
List of forgeries
Known forgeries
Han van Meegeren's forgery of The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen
Malle Babbe
List of known forgeries by Han van Meegeren (unless specified differently, they are after Vermeer):[75][76][77]
• A counterpart to Laughing Cavalier after Frans Hals (1923) once the subject of a scandal in The Hague in 1923, its present whereabouts is unknown.
Laughing Cavalier by Hals Groninger Museum, forged by van Meegeren
• The Happy Smoker after Frans Hals (1923) hangs in the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands • Man and Woman at a Spinet 1932 (perhaps without misleading intentions,[78] sold to Amsterdam banker, Dr. Fritz Mannheimer)
• Lady reading a letter[79] 1935–1936 (unsold, on display at the Rijksmuseum)
• Lady playing a lute and looking out the window[80] 1935–1936 (unsold, on display at the Rijksmuseum)
Woman Playing Music 63 x 49 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1935-36
• Portrait of a Man[81] 1935–1936 in the style of Gerard ter Borch (unsold, on display at the Rijksmuseum)
• Woman Drinking (version of Malle Babbe)[82] 1935–1936 (unsold, on display at the Rijksmuseum.)
Woman Drinking, 78 x 66 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1935-36
• The Supper at Emmaus, 1936–1937 (sold to the Boymans for 520,000 – 550,000 guldens, about US$300,000 or US$4 Million today)
The Disciples at Emmaus 115 x 127 cm, painted around 1936-37
Director and chief restorer of Museum Boymans in Rotterdam admiring the newly discovered Emmaus by Johannes Vermeer that eight years later would appear to be a fake made by Han van Meegeren. https://www.meegeren.net/
• Interior with Drinkers 1937–1938 (sold to D G. van Beuningen for 219,000 – 220,000 guldens about US$120,000 or US$1.6 million today)
Interior with Drinkers, 80 x 69 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1937-38
• The Last Supper I, 1938–1939
The Last Supper (1st version) 146 x 267 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1938-39
• Interior with Cardplayers 1938 - 1939 (sold to W. van der Vorm for 219,000 – 220,000 guldens US$120,000 or US$1.6 million today)
Interior with Cardplayers, 75 x 62 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1939
• The Head of Christ, 1940–1941 (sold to D G. van Beuningen for 400,000 – 475,000 guldens about US$225,000 or US$3.25 million today)
Head of Christ, 48 x 30 cm, painted around 1940
• The Last Supper II, 1940–1942 (sold to D G. van Beuningen for 1,600,000 guldens about US$600,000 or US$7 million today)
The Last Supper (2nd version) 174 x 244 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1940-41
• The Blessing of Jacob 1941–1942 (sold to W. van der Vorm for 1,270,000 guldens about US$500,000 or US$5.75 million today)
The Blessing of Jacob 125 x 115 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1941-42
• Christ with the Adulteress 1941–1942 (sold to Hermann Göring for 1,650,000 guldens about US$624,000 or US$6.75 million today, now in the public collection of Museum de Fundatie[83])
The Woman Taken in Adultery 96 x 88 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1941-42
• The Washing of the Feet[84] 1941–1943 (sold to the Netherlands state for 1,250,000 – 1,300,000 guldens about US$500,000 or US$5.3 million today, on display at the Rijksmuseum)
The Washing of the Feet 115 x 95 cm, oil on canvas, painted around 1942-43
• Jesus among the Doctors September 1945 (painted during trial under Court's control, and sold at auction for 3,000 guldens, about US$800 or US$7,000 today)
Jesus Among the Doctors 157 x 202 cm, oil on canvas, painted July - September 1945
Three views of Han Van Meegeren at work on “The Young Christ”, after Vermeer. This is the painting that Van Meegeren created in the style of Vermeer in three months in 1945 to prove to authorities that he was the forger who created the fake Vermeer Christ at Emmaus, which was discovered after the end of the War to have been in the collection of the Nazi Herman Goering, and which was believed to be an original Vermeer. Had Van Meegeren been convicted of selling the painting to Goering, he could have faced the death penalty for treason. Admitting the forgery, and proving it by executing this painting, was the lesser of the two evils. Photographs from The Master Forger by John Godley; New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc. 1950.
• The Procuress given to the Courtauld Institute as a fake in 1960 and confirmed as such by chemical analysis in 2011.
Posthumously, Van Meegeren's forgeries have been shown in exhibitions around the world, including exhibitions in Amsterdam (1952), Basel (1953), Zurich (1953), Haarlem in the Kunsthandel de Boer (1958), London (1961), Rotterdam (1971), Minneapolis (1973), Essen (1976–1977), Berlin (1977), Slot Zeist [nl] (1985), New York (1987), Berkeley, CA (1990), Munich (1991), Rotterdam (1996), The Hague (1996) and more recently at the Haagse Kunstkring, The Hague (2004) and Stockholm (2004), and have thus been made broadly accessible to the public.[85][86][87]
Potential forgeries
It is possible that other fakes hang in art collections all over the world, probably in the style of 17th-century Dutch masters, including works in the style of Frans Hals and the school of Hals, Pieter de Hooch, and Gerard ter Borch. Jacques van Meegeren suggested that his father had created a number of other forgeries, during interviews with journalists[88] regarding discussions with his father.[89] Some of these paintings include:
Smiling Girl may have been painted by Van Meegeren
• Boy with a Little Dog and The Rommelpotspeler after Frans Hals. The Frans Hals catalogue by Frans L. M. Dony[90] mentions four paintings by this name attributed to Frans Hals or the "school of Frans Hals". One of these could easily be by Van Meegeren. • A counterpart to Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. A painting called Smiling Girl hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (bequest Andrew W. Mellon) that could fit with Jacques’ description and has been recognized by the museum as a fake. It was attributed to Theo van Wijngaarden, friend and partner of Van Meegeren, but may have been painted by Van Meegeren. • Lady with a Blue Hat after Vermeer which was sold to Baron Heinrich Thyssen in 1930. Its present whereabouts are unknown. This painting was owned by John Ringling and Paul Cassirer who sold it to Thyssen. it is often referred to as the “Greta Garbo” Vermeer.
So called because of its resemblance to Garbo film posters, this painting is otherwise known as The Girl in Antique Costume or The Girl in the Blue Hat. The Paul Casirer Gallery of Berlin arranged the sale of the picture to Baron Heinrich Thyssen, who later became suspicious of the work and returned it to the gallery. Again, Jonathan Lopez suggests that the picture’s “Thirties” look was intended by van Meegeren to appeal subliminally to the tastes of the time. https://webartacademy.com/forgery-dutch ... d-vermeers
Original artwork
Van Meegeren was a prolific artist and produced thousands of original paintings in a number of diverse styles. This wide range in painting and drawing styles often irritated art critics. Some of his typical works are classical still lifes in convincing 17th century manner, Impressionistic paintings of people frolicking on lakes or beaches, jocular drawings where the subject is drawn with rather odd features, Surrealistic paintings with combined fore- and backgrounds. Van Meegeren's portraits, however, are probably his finest works.[9][89]
Among his original works is his famous Deer, pictured above. Other works include his prize-winning St. Laurens Cathedral;[91]
Han Van Meegeren, St. Laurens Kirk, Amsterdam, early architectural painting
a Portrait of the actress Jo Oerlemans[92] (his second wife);
This portrait of his second wife JO was made by Van Meegeren in the roaring twenties. It bears a fake date - 1946 - one of the mysteries Van Meegeren left us. (But unveiled by Frederik H. Kreuger in his "Life and Work of Han van Meegeren" at page 162).
his Night Club;[93]
x
from the Roaring Twenties;
Roaring Twenties
the cheerful watercolor A Summer Day on the Beach[94]
x
and many others.
Nachtlokaal 2
Nachtlokaal 1, Private Collection, Netherlands
Vrouw voor de spiegel, Private Collection, Netherlands
Nachtlokaal 3, Private Collection, Netherlands
Work also known as Glorification of Labor, Han van Meegeren, 1940-41, Juvenile Hall, Connecticut
Jopie Breemer (1875-1957) was a well-known Bohémien in pre-war Holland. Jopie Breemer as the Praying Jew.
"Rembrandtje" (A small Rembrandt). Han van Meegeren made this drawing of a country-inn, with a goose-quill, in the style of Rembrandt. He was studying architecture in Delft when he made this picture. The picture is not a fake – Han van Meegeren signed it with his full name – it is his own interpretation of the style of Rembrandt. https://www.meegeren.net/
"Self portrait" Age about 35
The forger forged
Main article: Jacques van Meegeren § Fake van Meegerens
Van Meegeren's own work rose in price after he had become known as a forger, and it consequently became worthwhile to fake his paintings, as well. Existing paintings obtained a signature "H. van Meegeren", or new pictures were made in his style and falsely signed. When Van Meegeren saw a fake like that, he ironically remarked that he would have adopted them if they had been good enough, but regrettably he had not yet seen one.
Later on, however, his son Jacques van Meegeren started to fake his father's work. He made paintings in his father's style – although of much lower quality – and was able to place a perfect signature on these imitations. Many fakes – both by Jacques and by others – are still on the market. They can be recognized by their low pictorial quality, but are not always regarded as such.
Notes and references
1. "Han van Meegeren". RKD (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 27 June 2015. Retrieved 9 October 2018. 2. Dutton, Denis (2005). "Authenticity in Art". In Jerrold Levinson (ed.). The Oxford handbook of aesthetics. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. pp. 261–263. ISBN 0-19-927945-4. Archived from the original on 2021-05-08. Retrieved 2016-09-23. 3. Keats, Jonathon (2013). Forged: Why Fakes are the Great Art of Our Age. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. p. 69. ISBN 9780199279456. Archived from the original on 2021-05-08. Retrieved 2016-09-23. 4. Peter, Schjeldahl (October 27, 2008). "Dutch Master". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009. Retrieved 20 July 2009. 5. Williams, Robert C. (2013). The forensic historian: using science to reexamine the past. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0765636621. Archived from the original on 4 September 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2015. 6. "Janet Wasserman – Han van Meegeren and his portraits of Theo van der Pas and Jopie Breemer (3)". Rob Scholte Museum. 24 September 2014. Archived from the original on 22 May 2015. Retrieved 2 September 2015. 7. Equivalent of the total amount in dollars stated by Kilbracken in Appendix II, a biography published in 1967. 8. "Calculate the Value of $30 in 1967. How much is it worth today?". 9. Kreuger, 2007.p 22. 10. Doudart de la Grée, Marie-Louise (Amsterdam 1966) Geen Standbeeld voor Van Meegeren (No Statue for Van Meegeren). Nederlandsche Keurboekerij Amsterdam. OCLC 64308055 11. Godley, John (Lord Kilbracken) (1951). Van Meegeren, master forger. p:127 - 129. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. LC call number: ND653.M58 K53 1966. OCLC 31674916 12. Godley, 1951:129 - 134 13. Dutton, Denis (1993). "Han van Meegeren (excerpt)". In Gordon Stein (ed.). Encyclopedia of hoaxes. Detroit: Gale Research. ISBN 0-8103-8414-0. 14. Kreuger 2007 15. Tentoonstelling van schilderijen, acquarellen, en teekeningen door H. A. van Meegeren. The Hague: Kunstzaal Pictura, 1917. 16. "Han van Meegeren", Wikipedia (in Dutch), 2021-11-28, retrieved 2022-02-23 17. Kreuger 2007:208 18. Godley, 1951:143–147 19. Bailey, Anthony (2002). Vermeer: A View of Delft. Clearwater, Fla: Owl Books. p. 253. ISBN 0-8050-6930-5. 20. Kreuger 2007:46 and 56 21. Wynne, Frank (8 May 2006). "The forger who fooled the world". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 2019-04-04. Retrieved 2012-06-15. 22. Campbell-Johnston, Rachel (19 February 2021). "The Last Vermeer: how one man's counterfeits duped the art world". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 20 February 2021. Retrieved 20 February 2021.(subscription required) 23. Van Meegeren, Han (partly under alias) (April 1928–March 1930). De Kemphaan. 24. Goll, Joachim (1962). Art counterfeiter. p.183. Leipzig: E.A.Seemann Publishing House. Language: German (with pictures Number 106 – 122 and literature pp. 249 – 250). 25. Bailey, 2003:233 26. Bredius, Abraham (October 1932). "An unpublished Vermeer". Archived from the original on October 28, 2009. Retrieved 2007-05-26.. Burlington Magazine 61:145. 27. Godley, John (1951). Master Art Forger: The Story of Han Van Meegeren. Wilfred Funk. pp. 12–13. 28. Godley, 1951: pp. 43-56, 86–90 29. "Rijksmuseum Amsterdam - Nationaal Museum voor Kunst en Geschiedenis". Rijksmuseum.nl. Archived from the original on 2011-06-09. 30. Bredius, Abraham (November 1937). "A new Vermeer". The Burlington Magazine. pp. 210–211. Archived from the original on October 28, 2009. 31. Bianconi, Piero (1967). Vermeer. Gemeinshaftsausgabe Kunstkreis Luzern Buchclub Ex Libris Zürich. p. 100. 32. To obtain the relative present value the amount in Dutch Guilders was given for the year 1938 at inflation calculator from/to Guilders or Euros Archived 2017-09-02 at the Wayback Machine. 33. Schueller, 1953: p. 28 34. The Last Supper I was recovered in September 1949, during a search of the estate of Dr. Paul B. Coremans; x-ray examinations revealed that van Meegeren had reused the canvas of a painting by Govert Flinck. 35. Kreuger 2007: p. 136 36. Boissevain, Jeremy (1996) Coping With Tourists: European Reactions to Mass Tourism. Berghahn Books. p233. ISBN 1-57181-878-2 37. To obtain the present value in U.S. currency for a given year the number of guilders was divided by the rate of exchange (guilders or pounds per dollar) Archived 2010-09-04 at the Wayback Machine for that year. The value in U.S. currency for a given year was then entered into the formula at What is the Relative Value? Archived 2006-05-14 at the Wayback Machine to obtain the present value (Consumer Price Index for 2005). 38. Bailey, 2002:234 39. Bailey 2003:255 40. "How Mediocre Dutch Artist Cast 'The Forger's Spell'". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 2018-11-24. Retrieved 2018-04-03. 41. Nutting, Alissa (2009-05-31). ""Bamboozling Ourselves" Errol Morris, New York Times, 1 June 2009". Morris.blogs.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on 2015-09-28. Retrieved 2012-04-28. 42. Schueller, 1953:16 43. Kreuger 2007:146 44. Kreuger 2007:152–155 45. "tnunn.ndo.co.uk". ndo.co.uk. Archived from the original on August 24, 2013. 46. "Van Meegeren's Fake Vermeer's". essentialvermeer.com. Archived from the original on 2015-08-26. Retrieved 2012-07-08. 47. Godley, 1951:268–281 48. Coremans, Paul B. (1949). Van Meegeren's faked Vermeers and De Hooghs: a scientific examination. Amsterdam: J. M. Meulenhoff. OCLC 2419638. 49. Schueller, 1953: 18–19 50. A.H. Huussen, Cahiers uit het Noorden, Zoetermeer 2009; the texts of the original experts report of 10 Jan. 1947 and that of the sentence of the Amsterdam district court 12 Nov 1947 were retrieved by prof. Huussen in 2009. 51. Roth, Toni (1971). "Methods to determine identity and authenticity". The art and the beautiful home 83:81–85. 52. TIME magazine "Truth & Consequences" Monday, Nov. 24, 1947. 53. Wallace, Irving. 'The Man Who Swindled Goering', in The Sunday Gentleman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965 (originally published 1946). 54. Godley, 1951:282 55. "Zoeken". Rijksmuseum (in Dutch). Retrieved 2022-02-27. 56. ten Dam, René. "Dood in Nederland (Dead in the Netherlands)" (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2007-05-25. 57. TIME Magazine "Not for Money" Monday, Sep. 18, 1950. 58. "Authentication in Art List of Unmasked Forgers". Archived from the original on 2017-12-22. Retrieved 2017-12-21. 59. Decoen, Jean (1951). Retour à la véritè, Vermeer-Van Meegeren: Deux Authentiques Vermeer (Back to the truth, Vermeer-Van Meegeren: Two genuine Vermeers). Rotterdam: Editions Ad. Donker. Illustrations: b/w. OCLC 3340265. 60. Schueller, 1953:48–58 61. Bianconi, Piero (1967). Vermeer. Gemeinshaftsausgabe Kunstkreis Luzern Buchclub Ex Libris Zürich. p. 101. 62. Godley, 1951:256–258 63. Keisch, B.; Feller, R. L.; Levine, A. S.; Edwards, R. R. (1967). "Dating and Authenticating Works of Art by Measurement of Natural Alpha Emitters". Science. 155 (3767): 1238–1242. Bibcode:1967Sci...155.1238K. doi:10.1126/science.155.3767.1238. PMID 17847535. S2CID 23046304. 64. Strauss, R.(1968). "Analysis of investigations of pigments from paintings of south German painters in the 17th and 18th century." (With 62 slides). Thesis. Technical University Munich. 65. Exhibition catalog Essen and Berlin. Falsification and Research (1976) "Museum Folkwang, Essen and Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin". Berlin. Language: German. ISBN 3-7759-0201-5. 66. Keisch, B. (1968). "Dating Works of Art through Their Natural Radioactivity: Improvements and Applications". Science. 160 (3826): 413–415. Bibcode:1968Sci...160..413K. doi:10.1126/science.160.3826.413. PMID 17740234. S2CID 38078513. 67. Flett, Robert (8 October 2003). Understanding the Pb-210 Method. Archived 2017-10-19 at the Wayback Machine 68. Froentjes, W., and R. Breek (1977). "A new study into the identity of the [portfolio] of Van Meegeren". Chemical Magazine: 583–589. 69. Nieuw onderzoek naar het bindmiddel van Van Meegeren (New investigations in the chemicals of Han van Meegeren), Chemisch Weekblad Nov. 1977. (in Dutch). 70. "Rembrandt". Fake or Fortune?. Episode 4. 2011-07-10. BBC. Archived from the original on 2011-08-06. Retrieved 2011-08-04. 71. Doudart de la Grée, 1946a:145, 230 72. TIME Magazine The Price of Forgery Monday, Nov. 18, 1946. 73. Lopez, Jonathan (2008). The Man who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han Van Meegeren. Harcourt. p. 214. ISBN 9780151013418. Retrieved 27 March 2021. 74. Doudart de la Grée, 1946a:224 75. Van Brandhof, Marijke (1979). Early Vermeer 1937. Contexts of life and work of the painter/falsifier Han van Meegeren. (Catalogue of Han van Meegeren work pp. 153–163, with numerous illustrations of the pictures with the signature H. van Meegeren.) Dissertation. Utrecht: The Spectrum. 76. De Boer, H., and Pieter Koomen (1942). Photographs of the paintings of Han van Meegeren: Han van Meegeren (Teekeningen I). With a preface by Drs-Ing. E. A. van Genderen Stort. 'sGravenhage: Publishing House L. J. C. Boucher. 77. Kostelanetz, Richard; H. R. Brittain; et al. (2001). A dictionary of the avant-gardes. New York: Routledge. p. 636. ISBN 0-415-93764-7. 78. Bianconi, Piero (1967). Vermeer. Gemeinshaftsausgabe Kunstkreis Luzern Buchclub Ex Libris Zürich. p. 102. 79. "Brieflezende vrouw - Het Geheugen van Nederland - Online beeldbank van Archieven, Musea en Bibliotheken". Geheugenvannederland.nl. Archived from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2013-12-29. 80. "Cisterspelende vrouw - Het Geheugen van Nederland - Online beeldbank van Archieven, Musea en Bibliotheken". Geheugenvannederland.nl. Archived from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2013-12-29. 81. "Portret van een man - Het Geheugen van Nederland - Online beeldbank van Archieven, Musea en Bibliotheken". Geheugenvannederland.nl. Archived from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2013-12-29. 82. "Malle Babbe". geheugenvannederland.nl. Archived from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2021-11-05. 83. [1][dead link] 84. "De voetwassing - Het Geheugen van Nederland - Online beeldbank van Archieven, Musea en Bibliotheken". Geheugenvannederland.nl. Archived from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2013-12-29. 85. Mondadori, Arte Arnaldo (1991). "Genuinely wrong" (Villa Stuck, München). Fondation Cartier. 86. Schmidt, Georg (ed.) (1953). "Wrong or genuine?" (Basel, Zurich). Basel Art Museum. 87. Van Wijnen, H. (1996). "Exhibition catalog Rotterdam". Han van Meegeren. (With 30 black-and-white and 16 colour pictures.) The Hague. Language: Dutch. 88. Schueller, 1953:46–48 89. Kreuger, Frederik H. (2004). The life and work of Han Van Meegeren, master-forger page 173. (Published in Dutch as Han van Meegeren, Meestervervalser. Includes 130 illustrations, some in colour, many of them new.) OCLC 71736835. 90. Frans L.M. Dony (1976) Frans Hals (1974, Rizolli Editore Milano) (1976, Lekturama Rotterdam). Note: This book is considered by the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem to be the best survey of the works of Frans Hals. 91. "St. Laurens Cathedral image". Archived from the original on 2012-03-11. Retrieved 2012-05-05. 92. "Portrait of the actress Jo Oerlemans image". Archived from the original on 2012-03-11. Retrieved 2012-05-05. 93. "Night Club". Archived from the original on 2012-03-11. Retrieved 2012-05-05. 94. [2] Archived March 27, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
• Kreuger, Frederik H. (2007) A New Vermeer, Life and Work of Han van Meegeren. Rijswijk, Holland: Quantes. ISBN 978-90-5959-047-2
Further reading
List of Works
• Kreuger, Frederik H. (2013). Han van Meegeren Revisited. His Art & a List of his Works., Fourth enlarged edition. Quantes Publishers Rijswijk, Delft 2013. ISBN 978 90 5959 065 6
Source
• Arend Hendrik Huussen Jr.: Henricus (Han) Antonius van Meegeren (1889 - 1945). Documenten betreffende zijn leven en strafproces. (Cahiers uit het noorden 20), Zoetermeer, Huussen 2009. • Arend Hendrik Huussen Jr.: Henricus (Han) Antonius van Meegeren (1889 - 1945). Documenten, supplement. (Cahiers uit het noorden 21), Zoetermeer, Huussen 2010.
Han van Meegeren biographies
• Baesjou, Jan (1956). The Vermeer forgeries: The story of Han van Meegeren. G. Bles. A biography/novel based on the author's conversations with van Meegeren's second wife. OCLC 3949129 • Brandhof, Marijke van den (1979): Een vroege Vermeer uit 1937: Achtergronden van leven en werken van de schilder/vervalser Han van Meegeren. Utrecht: Spectrum, 1979. The only scholarly biography of van Meegeren. An English-language summary is offered by Werness (1983). • Dolnick, Edward (2008). The forger's spell: a true story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the greatest art hoax of the twentieth century. New York: Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-082541-6. • Godley, John Raymond Lord Kilbracken (1967). Van Meegeren: A case history. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd. 1967, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. The standard English-language account, based on the author's literature research and conversations with van Meegeren's son and daughter.OCLC 173258 • Guarnieri, Luigi (2004). La Doppia vita di Vermeer. Arnoldo Mondadori S.p.A., Milan. This "novel" ("romanzo") itself is a sort of forgery. As Henry Keazor in the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau could show in 2005 (see: "Gefälscht!", April 12, 2005, No. 84, Forum Humanwissenschaften, p. 16), Guarnieri has copied large parts of his book (sometime word by word) from Lord Kilbracken's 1967-biography. Since Guarnieri's brother Giovanni works as a translator, [see: "What are translators reading?". Translatorscafe.com. Archived from the original on 2016-01-02. Retrieved 2012-05-05.] Luigi easily could have had the English text translated into the Italian. Keazor shows that Guarnieri tried to cover his tracks by not referring to the book by Kilbracken – he only mentions (p. 212) his earlier and different book (Master Art Forger. The story of Han van Meegeren, New York 1951) which, however, was published under Kilbracken's civil name "John Godley". • Isheden, Per-Inge (2007). van Meegeren—konstförfalskarnas konung [van Meegeren—king of art forgeries]. Kvällsstunden: Hemmets och familjens veckotidning 69(38), 3, 23. (In Swedish, with side-by-side examples of originals and van Meegeren's forgeries.) • Kreuger, Frederik H. (2007). A New Vermeer: Life and Work of Han van Meegeren. Quantes Publishers, Rijswijk 2007. ISBN 978-90-5959-047-2 • Lopez, Jonathan (2008). The Man Who Made Vermeers. New York: Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-15-101341-8. • Moiseiwitsch, Maurice (1964). The Van Meegeren mystery; a biographical study. London: A. Barker. OCLC 74000800 • Werness, Hope B. (1983). Denis Dutton (ed.). "Han van Meegeren fecit" in The forger's art: forgery and the philosophy of art. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05619-1. • Wynne, Frank (2006). I was Vermeer: the rise and fall of the twentieth century's greatest forger. New York: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-58234-593-2.
Novels about or inspired by Han van Meegeren
• Gaddis, William (1955). The Recognitions. William H. Gass (Introduction). Penguin Classics (1993-reprint). ISBN 3-442-44878-6. • Kreuger, Frederik H. (2005). The Deception. Novel and His Real Life. The Netherlands: Quantes Uitgeverij. ISBN 90-5959-031-7.
Films about or inspired by Han van Meegeren
• Peter Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts (1985). In this film Gerard Thoolen plays "Van Meegeren", a surgeon and painter modeled after Han van Meegeren. • Jan Botermans and Gustav Maguel (1951). Van Meegeren's false Vermeers [Film]. (See Sepp Schueller, p. 57.) • Fritz Kirchhoff (1949). Verführte Hände (literally: Enticed hands) (Film). Germany. • Antonín Moskalyk (director) (1990). Dobrodružství kriminalistiky: Paprsek 16/26 (literally: Adventures of Criminology: The Ray) (TV series). Czechoslovakia, West Germany: Czechoslovakian television, Sudwestfunk Baden-Baden, Westdeutsches Werbefernsehen. • Dan Friedkin's The Last Vermeer (2019), in which Han van Meegeren is played by Guy Pearce. Plays inspired by Han van Meegeren • Bruce J. Robinson (2007). Another Vermeer [Play]. Produced by the Abingdon Theatre Company of New York City • Ian Walker (playwright). Ghost in the Light [Play]. Produced by Second Wind Productions of San Francisco. • David Jon Wiener. "The Master Forger" [Play]. Produced by Octad-One Productions Lakeside, CA and The Tabard Theatre London, England.
External links
• Pictures in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam[permanent dead link] • Photo from Van Meegeren's trial • The Meegeren website with many examples of Van Meegeren's own paintings, as well as updated information regarding his personal and professional life, compiled by Frederik H. Kreuger.
**********************
For decades the tale of how and why Han van Meegeren began painting bogus paintings was as fraudulent as the bogus works of art that made him the most famous forger of the 20th Century. by Lawrence Jeppson Nauvoo Times September 16, 2013
Here, in a nutshell, is the beginning of his easel fakery as I reported it in my 1970 book The Fabulous Frauds, Fascinating Tales of Great Art Forgeries. My account was more thorough than anything that had been published, and part of it was picked up and published as authoritative in the Dutch press. Turns out, decades later, that I had swallowed Van Meegeren’s tale as he had confessed it to newspapers and the court. The truth was much more nefarious.
Van Meegeren (1889-1947) declared in court that his most famous forgery, The Supper at Emmaus, was his first forgery. For years the world believed him. For a brief period he gloried as a Dutch folk hero. He was a prodigious liar.
Han van Meegeren
Van Meegeren was an artist trapped in the 17th Century. (No falsehood there.) By the age of ten, drawing was an obsession, as was playing practical jokes, some of which got him into trouble. At 12, he locked the door to the local constabulary and threw the heavy key, which also served as the doorknob, into a nearby canal, keeping the inside policemen from getting out and the outside police from getting in.
His rigid schoolmaster father wanted him to become an architect. In the same year he locked up the policemen, Han began taking art lessons from Bartus Korteling (1853-1930), who trained him rigorously in the artistic methods, observations, and meticulous brushwork of earlier golden-age Dutch painters. Han lived all his spare moments reading, studying, painting, and trying to match the work of early masters.
Han’s regimenting father, still thinking architecture, said he would pay for the boy’s six years of university schooling if he could finish it in five. So Han went off to school in Delft, where Vermeer had painted. Free from paternal oversight, he studied hard, lived hard, and painted hard. The balance he struck allowed little time for architecture.
In 1911, he met Anna de Voogt, daughter of a Catholic Dutchman and a Muslim woman from Sumatra. She insisted he was wasting his time in architecture and should concentrate on his art. She was pregnant when they married the next year. He flunked his Delft exams but won a gold medal and $300 for a watercolor of the interior of a classic Rotterdam church.
Han Van Meegeren, St. Laurens Kirk, Amsterdam, early architectural painting
He accepted his father’s conditional offer to pay for the sixth year at the university, but when Han got to the finals he realized that if he passed he would be an architect forever. He quit.
He petitioned The Hague Academy of Art to give him its diploma in art. He passed the written portions of the test but failed in an exam for portraiture. He then had to paint a still life. While he painted this he noticed that the judges were ranged across the background. He added a portrait of each as the background to the still life. It was a tour de force, and they gave him his diploma.
He got his degree in 1914, on the day Britain went to war with Germany. He and Anna suffered terrible years again. He sold very little and spent far more than he earned. They continued to be helped by her grandmother.
He ran into Korteling, who became the Van Meegerens’ houseguest. He and Han huddled like two alchemists, grinding and brewing ingredients to duplicate the paints of the ancients.
Trying to sweeten a marriage that was going sour, Anne invited all her rich relatives to a show of Han’s art. Everything sold: a momentary success. At the show he met Johanna van Walraven, actress wife of Karel de Boer, an art critic who came to interview him. Han and Jo began living together long before Anna divorced him in 1923.
At another show, a critic offered to give Han a raving review in exchange for a substantial bribe. Van Meegeren refused. There was no review. Han began to see venality on every side. When an American dealer offered him a one-year contract of $15,000 and all expenses if Han would paint a portrait a week, the task seemed too onerous, and Han said no. He was already making more money as a forger.
Han van Meegeren, Paris life, a far cry from his 17th century art but a truer picture of the life he preferred.
To expose the rottenness of the Dutch art community, Han and his best friend, Theo Wijngaarden, and a writer name Jan Ubink decided to produce a monthly periodical De Kemphaan/The Fighting Cock, which, angry, sarcastic, and libelous, attacked critics, art historians, Surrealism, bribery, and the incompetence of experts. Although Hitler had not come to power, Van Meegeren was a sympathizer and shared many Fascist views.
His father was said to have once told him, "You are a cheat and always will be." He sent a signed copy of his own art book to Adolf Hitler, which turned up in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin complete with an inscription (in German): "To my beloved Führer in grateful tribute, from H. van Meegeren, Laren, North Holland, 1942". He only admitted the signature was his own, although the entire inscription was by the same hand.
Theo Wijngaarden claimed that he had mistakenly cleaned a genuine Vermeer using alcohol, which will not remove original, hardened paint from old paintings but will remove newer paint. Theo had cleaned the painting with alcohol and then retouched it. The retouching failed the alcohol test, and the painting was branded a fake. Then Theo presented another Vermeer to Dr. Abraham Bredius, the most illustrious art historian in Holland. When Bredius declared it genuine, Theo slashed it into pieces, declaring it was a genuine Wijngaarden!
Han van Meegeren got the idea of tricking the scholar by painting a fake Vermeer that would be so good Bredius would be forced to authenticate it.
This is where Han van Meegeren, who viewed himself as a misunderstood genius, wanted the world to believe that his life as a forger started. That and lots of other things he and Wijngaarden said were blatant lies.
In 2008, two exhaustibly researched books were published that reveal Van Meegeren’s deep involvement in the rotten stratum of the Dutch art community. One of these, written by Jonathan Lopez, was The Man Who Made Vermeer, “Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren.” Lopez spent three years searching archives in Holland, the United States, Great Britain, and Germany and interviewing descendants of Van Meegeren’s cabal:
I learned that Van Meegeren worked for decades with a ring of shady art dealers promoting fake old masters, some of which ended up in the possession of such prominent collectors as Andrew Mellow and Baron Heinrich Thyssen. All the while, Van Meegeren cultivated a fascination with Hitler and Naziism that, when the Occupation came, would provide him entree to the highest level of Dutch collaborators. (Lopez, p.2).
The other was written by Edward Dolnick, The Forger’s Spell, “A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century.” Dolnick’s approach is different but also is thoroughly researched. In his preface he succinctly presents Van Meegeren’s dilemma:
Where there was no crime, it stood to reason there was no criminal. For a villain who craved recognition, that made for a vicious dilemma. Keep his crime secret, and he would live rich and safe but unknown. Confess what he had done, on the other hand, and though he would find himself condemned to a prison cell, his genius would be proclaimed worldwide.
In both books the authors explode the details and extent of Han’s duplicity. He was a crook from the start.
Giving up a job teaching drawing at Delft, Han moved to The Hague, Holland’s fun-infested, wealthy capital. By making charcoal sketches of important people at a variety of public and private events, Han infiltrated the moneyed class and became in demand as a portrait painter.
Theo Wijngaarden was a The Hague art restorer who was part of a cabal that included several questionable individuals, including art dealer Leo Nardus, who in 14 years sold American collector P. A. B. [Peter Arrell Browne Widener] Widener 93 paintings, including three Vermeers. Suspicions aroused, Widener summoned three international experts to his 110-room Philadelphia mansion — Englishman Roger Fry, German Wilhelm Valentiner, and American Bernard Berenson. They denounced most of the collection.
Peter Arrell Browne Widener (November 13, 1834 – November 6, 1915) was an American businessman, art collector, and patriarch of the Widener family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Widener was ranked #29 on the American Heritage list of the forty richest Americans in history, with a net worth at death of $23 billion to $25 billion (in 1998 dollars)....
Art collection
Widener amassed a significant art collection that included works by Old Masters such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, Raphael and El Greco, British 18th- and 19th-century paintings, and works by French Impressionist artists such as Corot, Renoir, Degas and Manet.
About 1905, he purchased the crucifixion panel from Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion Diptych (c.1460) in Paris. The following year he sold it to John G. Johnson, who reunited the two halves and later donated them to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Widener's son Joseph donated more than 300 works—including paintings, sculpture, metalwork, stained glass, furniture, rugs, Chinese porcelains, and majolica—to the National Gallery of Art in 1942.
-- Peter Arrell Browne Widener, by Wikipedia
Art fraud includes adding artists’ names to questionable paintings, repainting or restoring old paintings so that they can be attributed to more important artists, and painting complete fakes. Nardus’s paintings included examples from all three classifications. As a restorer, Theo Wijngaarden was skilled in the first two, but was not sufficiently skilled to paint a really good fake that required portraiture.
Van Meegeren had to support Ann and the two children (they moved to Paris) and Jo and her child. He led a life of licentiousness, drinking, and carousing. His expenses stretched far beyond what he was making in portraiture. A hookup with Theo Wijngaarden was a natural, and, according to Lopez’s research, they began working together before 1921.
Neither man sold directly to the ultimate buyers. Instead they used a variety of finders, runners, other intermediaries, and dealers so that newly discovered paintings could not be traced back to them. In June, 1927, one of these runners, Harold B. Wright, an Englishman with dreams of wealth, showed up Kaiser Frederick Museum. He was carrying an unknown painting, The Lace Maker, by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) that he had discovered in an Amsterdam antique shop.
He sought authentication of the painting from the museum’s director Dr. Wilhelm von Bode, a respected authority. After close consideration, Bode wrote a certificate declaring the painting to be a “genuine, perfect, and very characteristic work of Jan Vermeer of Delft.” The painting was then exhibited in the museum.
Caught up in a Vermeer frenzy of the time, Sir Joseph Duveen, the most powerful art dealer in the world, bought two astonishing Vermeer oils, The Smiling Girl and The Lace Maker, and sold them to Andrew Mellon, a Pittsburgh banker.
When Mellon gave his art and his money to create the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (in appreciation, many of us still referred to it occasionally as the Mellon Museum), these two Vermeers were a valuable part of it. They hung in the Dutch rooms until the 1950s.
