The Forger's Spell - Edward Dolnick [133]
“It’s difficult to explain,” Hoogendijk admitted. “It’s unbelievable that it fooled me. But we all slid downwards—from Emmaus to the Last Supper, from the Last Supper to Isaac Blessing Jacob. When I look at them now, I do not understand how it could possibly have happened.”
For Hoogendijk and the other witnesses, this was painful, but the spectators had no qualms about enjoying themselves. When another middleman, Van Meegeren’s school chum Jan Kok, took the stand and said he had never heard of Vermeer, onlookers whooped and giggled. (Kok had been involved in the sale of the last of Van Meegeren’s forgeries, the hideous Washing of Christ’s Feet. This was the painting that the Netherlands had purchased for the Rijksmuseum for $5.9 million in today’s dollars.)
Incredulous, the judge interrupted Kok’s testimony. “The name Vermeer didn’t ring any bells with you?”
Van Meegeren spoke up on his friend’s behalf. “He was completely honest and the noblest person in this whole affair.”
More laughter. A cameraman climbed up on his chair in the hope of a better shot of the room. The judge gaveled him back into his seat and ordered a stop to all filming.
Hannema suffered through a recap of his role in the affair, and Van Beuningen and Van der Vorm, the Rotterdam tycoons, endured brief examinations, too. Finally, after all the seduced experts and suckered millionaires, Van Meegeren himself took the stand.
“You admit that you painted these fakes?” the judge asked.
“Yes, your honor.”
“And that you sold them, at high prices?”
“I had no choice. If I had sold them at a low price, no one would have believed they were authentic.”
Snickering in the court. “Why did you continue with your forgeries after your success with Emmaus?”
“I could not stop, your honor. It became an addiction. I wanted to prove myself over and over again.”
“That’s all well and good, but you did quite nicely for yourself.”
More laughter. “It’s true, your honor, but I didn’t do it for the money. I already had more money than I could ever spend. I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“So your motive was not financial gain?”
“I wanted to strike at the art world for always belittling me. That was all.”
“It seems you succeeded.”
Applause in the courtroom, gaveled down by the judge.
IT WAS ONLY midday, but with Van Meegeren not contesting the charges against him, the trial was hurtling along. All that remained were summary speeches by the prosecution and the defense. The prosecutor spoke first.
“Honorable gentlemen,” he began. “Today our courtroom, which is usually so sober, has a very different look.” He gestured at the paintings on the walls. “Millions were paid for these old masters, which until very recently experts attributed to Johannes Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch. Now, however, we judge these paintings in a totally different way, now that we know that ten years ago even the oldest of them had yet to be painted.
“The defendant is charged with making these paintings, with signing them falsely, and with having these false paintings sold as real Vermeers and Pieter de Hoochs. The defendant admits the truth of these charges but says in his defense that he resented the critics’ neglect and wanted to show the world that he is a true artist.
“The defendant failed in that ambition. Today his status as an artist is more in question than it ever was.” Van Meegeren, listening intently, buried his face in both hands.
“In one respect, however, he did succeed,” the prosecutor went on. “He sent the art world into raptures. Art experts and collectors were utterly convinced that these were genuine Vermeers and De Hoochs. But in so doing—and this undermines all his success—he made himself a criminal and showed himself to be an immoral human being. The defendant did his utmost to tarnish the essence of art. He did this not to show the world that he was a great painter but with the purposeful, premeditated intention of