Cold Open

It’s May 29th, 1945, in a large house in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands.

55-year-old artist Han Van Meegeren closes his eyes and lets the water cascade over his head. He’s trying to wash away the throbbing pain in his temples. Last night, Han drank far too much, and this morning he’s paying the price.

Han groans as the pounding in his head is replaced by a banging on his front door. He climbs out of the shower and puts on a robe.

Han moves to the hallway and clutches the oak banister as his wife Johanna unlocks the door. But as soon as she’s turned the key, the door flies open, and four uniformed police officers barge past her and into the foyer.

Han races down the stairs to protest as an officer snaps handcuffs on his wife’s wrists. But as Han reaches the bottom step, another officer grabs his shoulder and presses him against the wall.

Through an open doorway, Han can see into his art studio, and there, the other two officers are already rifling through Han’s belongings. They examine an almost-finished painting on an easel. And then carefully remove the artwork hanging on the walls.

Spotting Han watching on, the senior officer steps out of the studio, and then tells Han that he’s under arrest for aiding and abetting the recently defeated Nazis—and if he’s found guilty, the penalty could be death.

Han Van Meegeren will soon discover the reason he’s been detained on such a serious charge—according to investigators, he's allowed a painting by famous Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer to fall into Nazi hands. But the charge leaves Han in a quandary, because to defend himself, Han will have to reveal a closely-guarded secret—that the paintings he’s sold for vast profits are not real Vermeers, but elaborate forgeries he made himself, years before his arrest on May 29th, 1945.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is May 29th, 1945: The Arrest of an Art Forger.

Act One: Aspiring Artist

It’s 1907 in Deventer, the Netherlands, 38 years before the arrest of Han Van Meegeren.

18-year-old Han hunches over a writing desk in his bedroom, scribbling line after identical line that reads “I know nothing, I am nothing, I am capable of nothing.” By the time he reaches the bottom of the page, his hand is cramping from the repetition, but he grips the pen even harder, imagining it’s actually his father’s neck.

For as long as he can remember, Han has dreamed of being an artist. He has spent every spare minute he can find drawing and painting. But Han’s ambition doesn’t meet with the approval of his schoolteacher father, who wants Han to learn a profession instead. So to put Han off art, his father belittles him and makes him write lines as though Han was one of his misbehaving students. But Han knows he doesn’t have to put up with his father’s cruel punishments much longer.

A few weeks later, Han sets out on the 100-mile journey to the Delft University of Technology. His father has arranged for him to study architecture there. But once Han is away from his father, he is free to embrace his love of art. And in 1913, one of his paintings wins first prize in a competition, giving him the confidence to quit architecture and enroll in art school instead.

His father is furious when he finds out that Han has abandoned his more respectable studies. And he’s not the only one who’s concerned about Han’s career choice. By now, Han is married to one of his classmates, and they have a baby boy together. His wife is worried about how they’ll make ends meet, but Han is not. Because he’s convinced that he will become a great artist.

But the world is slow to recognize his genius. Galleries turn him down, and buyers are only willing to pay a pittance for his work. In response, Han veers between arrogant dismissal of the collectors he sees as philistines and deep despair at their rejection of him.

To earn money, Han draws holiday cards and paints landscape posters for the commercial art industry, and he gets a part-time job as a teaching assistant at the Royal Academy of Art. But these only reinforce his feelings of inadequacy, and he sinks into depression.

At this point, Han almost abandons his dream of becoming an artist. But his wife doesn’t give up. She urges Han to return to his easel and sets about organizing an exhibition of his work. She scrapes together enough money to hire a venue and invites every art critic, gallery owner, and collector she can.

In April 1917, Han’s first-ever solo exhibition opens at a gallery in The Hague. His work isn’t modern. In fact, his paintings of churches and still-life could have been made centuries earlier. But the exhibition is still a runaway success. Han sells three paintings on the very first day, by the end of the four-week show, he’s found a buyer for every single work on display.

Thanks to his wife, suddenly, Han is an artist in demand. Commissions flood in, with wealthy people asking Han to paint their portraits. Among his new clients is a famous Dutch actress named Johanna Oerlemans. It’s a job that changes Han’s life.

He soon starts an affair with Johanna and makes little attempt to hide it. This betrayal is devastating for Han’s wife, but she’s not the only one hurt by this new relationship. Johanna is married as well, and her husband is one of the Netherlands’ foremost art critics.

Friends try to warn Han that humiliating someone so influential in the world of art is a bad move for his career, but Han doesn’t listen. He is too infatuated with Johanna to break off the affair, and he thinks a great artist like himself shouldn’t be hemmed in by the normal rules and expectations of mainstream society.

But he soon discovers that he has made a powerful enemy. In 1922, Han arranges a second solo exhibition of his work. But this time, the show's a failure. His paintings are trashed by the critics, who dismiss them as old-fashioned and uninspired. One especially scathing review calls Han “a gifted technician who…has every virtue except originality.”

Following this setback, Han descends into another bout of depression. And it’s all too much for his suffering wife. She’s supported him for years but now has had enough of his affairs, his mood swings, his arrogance and his victimhood. In March 1923, they divorce.

Han will wallow in his misery for months. He’ll practically stop painting entirely and blame everyone but himself for his problems. But eventually that misery will turn into anger and a desire to get revenge. He’ll become determined to show them all—if they think he’s nothing more than an imitator, then he’ll become the best imitator that ever lived and show his critics just how little they really know about true art.

Act Two: Master Forger

It’s 1937 in a village on the south coast of France, 16 years after Han Van Meegeren’s disastrous second exhibition.

In a busy cafe, 46-year-old Han anxiously taps his foot on the tiled floor. His coffee has turned cold, and his breakfast is untouched. Instead, his attention is focused on the door as he waits for his wife to arrive.

Following his divorce, Han eventually married his lover Johanna Oerlemans. In the early 1930s, the couple moved to the South of France, where Han set up a new studio. But instead of trying to create original works, he focused his efforts on becoming a master forger. According to his critics, he already painted in the style of old artists like Johannes Vermeer. So Han figured, if he could find a way to age his paintings convincingly, he could pass them off as newly discovered works of famous artists—and make a fortune.

After much experimentation, he settled on what he thought was a foolproof method. He bought genuine 17th-century canvases as his base. Then, he mixed up paint using old formulas and used badger-hair brushes just like Vermeer to apply them to the canvas.

The result though, still looked too new. So, Han used a chemical process to harden the paints and then baked the forgeries in an oven. Finally, he rolled a heavy cylinder over the canvas to introduce authentic-looking cracks and brushed Indian ink over the top to mimic three centuries’ worth of accumulated dust and dirt.

So, after almost six years of perfecting his technique, Han felt ready to create a new Vermeer masterpiece. The Supper at Emmaus depicted the resurrected Jesus Christ breaking bread with his disciples. When it was finished, Han used an intermediary to send the painting off to the prominent Dutch art historian Dr. Abraham Bredius for authentication.

And now, in this café, he’s just waiting on the verdict.

Han’s head snaps around as the cafe door opens, and his wife Johanna walks in clutching the newest issue of a monthly art magazine. Han quickly grabs it out of her hands and flips through the magazine pages to an article by Dr. Bredius. Reading a few paragraphs Han then punches the air in delight. Bredius writes that he has discovered a new Vermeer —and not only that, The Supper at Emmaus is one of the Dutch master’s best works.

The article captures the attention of the entire art world, and Han is quick to take advantage. He puts the forgery on the market—and it sells for the modern equivalent of over $5 million.

Han is delighted—and not just by the money. The Supper at Emmaus is being praised by the same people who mocked and dismissed the work Han did under his own name. Han can’t tell anyone the truth, of course, but he thrills in the idea that he’s outwitted his critics.

Over the next few years, Han will repeat this trick again and again. He creates more fake Vermeers and other forgeries that hoodwink the experts and sell for enormous sums. Even the outbreak of World War Two in September 1939 doesn’t stop him, and Han’s huge fortune enables him to live a life of luxury and excess even in wartime. But although business is booming, when the Nazis occupy the Netherlands in 1940, the seeds are sown for the end of Han’s fraudulent scheme.

Unbeknownst to him, one of Han's forgeries catches the eye of a high-ranking Nazi and ardent art collector Hermann Göring. Göring trades 137 stolen Dutch paintings for just one of Han’s forgeries, called the Christ with the Adulteress. But Göring doesn’t get to enjoy it for long. When Adolf Hitler’s regime collapses, Allied soldiers discover Christ with the Adulteress among thousands of paintings and other looted valuable stashed by the Nazis in a disused salt mine.

Investigators trace Christ with the Adulteress back to the person who supposedly discovered it a few years earlier—and they incorrectly assume that Han is the dealer who sold it to Göring. In May 1945, Han is arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the Nazi occupation by selling them an important piece of Dutch history.

Han faces the death penalty. But there’s one way to defeat the charges: if he admits to forging the painting.

It isn’t an easy thing to confess to, though, and for several weeks, Han agonizes over what to do. Finally, though, Han comes clean and explains to the shocked investigators how he painted the fake Vermeers and how he fooled the art world into believing that they were the real thing. But proving that he’s a forger is unexpectedly difficult. To protect their reputations, the art experts who authenticated the paintings double down on their assessment, claiming that Han’s so-called confession is just a ruse to escape the executioner’s noose.

So Han will propose an unusual way to prove his innocence. He will offer to create a new Vermeer under the supervision of the court. Painting has always given Han his livelihood. Now it might save his life.

Act Three: Folk Hero

It’s December 1945, at Han Van Meegeren’s home in Amsterdam, three months after Han was arrested by Dutch police.

In his light-filled studio, Han puts the finishing touches on his latest Vermeer masterpiece. He calls it Jesus Among the Doctors. The court-appointed witnesses who have watched his progress over the last few months can see that the style of the painting is undeniably similar to the earlier Supper at Emmaus. But that’s still not enough to prove that Han is innocent.

Han must also reveal the techniques he used to age his paintings. And once they are complete, the judge orders a comparison of Han’s latest forgery with the painting bought by Hermann Göring. And only then, to the art experts, grudgingly agree that under the microscope, the two paintings appear almost identical.

His newest forgery has saved Han’s life and he is cleared of the charges of collaborating with the Nazis. But he’s not off the hook entirely. He still has to pay for his criminal scheme, and, in late 1947, he’s put on trial for forgery and fraud. He’s quickly found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison.

But he’ll never serve even that. A few weeks after his conviction, Han suffers a heart attack and dies in the hospital at the age of 58.

And by this time, media coverage of his trial has made him a household name in the Netherlands. Many people think of Han Van Meegeren not as a criminal, but as a folk hero who defrauded the Nazis. So, hundreds attend his funeral.

During his lifetime, Han always harbored ambitions of becoming a great artist in his own right. But it was only by assuming the name of a real genius that he found success. Though today, his forgeries may seem crude to modern eyes, Han made himself a fortune by skillfully exploiting the art world’s eagerness to unearth lost Old Masters. And his elaborate fakes might have hung, undiscovered, on gallery walls for many decades to come were it not for Hermann Göring’s greed and Han Van Meegeren’s wrongful arrest on May 29th, 1945.

Outro

Next on History Daily. May 30th, 1431. English soldiers execute the teenage French military leader, Joan of Arc, by burning her at the stake.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Supervising Sound Designer Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Joe Godley.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.