The Forger's Spell - Edward Dolnick [132]
Next came a string of witnesses to testify to Van Meegeren’s sales technique. First was Piller, who testified about his long interviews during the weeks he had held Van Meegeren under house arrest. The court had a question. Why had Captain Piller kept Van Meegeren as a kind of private prisoner when he could immediately have turned him over to the Department of Justice? “Because it took me quite a while to find out who at Justice had been correct or incorrect in the years past,” Piller said, in a deliberately unsubtle allusion to Holland’s many collaborators and German sympathizers. “Your Honor, I can assure you, that was not an easy task.” No further questions.
Strijbis, the real estate agent who had followed Boon as Van Meegeren’s middleman, took the stand next. He knew nothing about art, he testified, and he told the court that when Van Meegeren had first recruited him, he had confessed his ignorance. “‘Don’t worry,’” Van Meegeren had assured him, “‘the people you’ll be dealing with don’t know anything, either.’”
When the laughter died down, Strijbis testified that at least he knew what he liked. He “would not allow into his house” the pictures Van Meegeren had asked him to sell. With the prosecutor’s prodding, Strijbis launched into a remarkable tale. It began in a familiar way. Van Meegeren claimed that he’d obtained a valuable collection of old masters from a Dutch family who needed to raise money but wanted, above all, to avoid publicity. Unfortunately, Van Meegeren had told Strijbis, he’d had run-ins with many powerful figures in the art world. But the paintings were extremely valuable, and if Strijbis were willing to help sell them, in return for one sixth of the sales price, everyone would come out ahead.
Almost at once, Strijbis testified, he had called on the Amsterdam art dealer D. A. Hoogendijk, one of Van Meegeren’s fake De Hoochs in hand. This was 1941. Hoogendijk was a natural choice not only because of his prominence in Amsterdam but because he had been the dealer who had brokered the Emmaus sale in 1937. Hoogendijk took the picture and quickly sold it to Van der Vorm, the Rotterdam shipping tycoon, for the equivalent of $1.3 million today.
That same year, Strijbis turned up at Hoogendijk’s again, this time with a Vermeer. (Van Meegeren, growing ever more brazen, had painted a Head of Christ that looked almost identical to the Christ in Emmaus.) Van Meegeren had told Strijbis that the new picture, which he said came from the same family collection as the others, seemed to be a study for a painting now unfortunately lost. Hoogendijk took one look, Strijbis testified, and said that he “at once thought of the Emmaus.” Hoogendijk bought the picture and immediately sold it to Van der Vorm’s rival Van Beuningen, for the equivalent of $2.5 million today.
Two months later, Strijbis was back at Hoogendijk’s, bringing miraculous news. What painting had turned up but the very one for which Vermeer had painted his Head of Christ as a study! Hoogendijk, nearly bursting with excitement, raced to tell Van Beuningen. The picture was an enormous Last Supper, and Christ was unmistakably based on the Head of Christ that Van Beuningen had just bought. Now, for the equivalent of $8.6 million today, he bought the Last Supper, too.
Strijbis and Hoogendijk sold one more forgery, a Vermeer called Isaac Blessing Jacob. Van der Vorm was the buyer this time. Strijbis had no idea the paintings weren’t authentic, he told the court. It had never occurred to him to wonder. Van Meegeren had said they were, and Hoogendijk hadn’t raised any questions. Strijbis didn’t know how much he’d made on the various deals. He hadn’t kept records.
After all this, Hoogendijk reluctantly took his turn in the witness box. A distinguished and accomplished man, he sat forlornly while