The Forger's Spell - Edward Dolnick [144]
“nowadays Mr. Bürger sees”…Ben Broos, “Vermeer: Malice and Misconception,” in Gaskell and Jonker, eds., Vermeer Studies, p. 22.
Thoré-Bürger wrote enthusiastically…Broos, “Malice,” p. 23.
“This devil of an artist”…“Woman in Blue Reading a Letter,” Wheelock, ed., Johannes Vermeer, p. 138.
“Hardly a Dutch name”…Broos, “Malice,” p. 24.
In his three essays…Ibid., p. 23.
“I hope that researchers”…Théophile Thoré-Bürger, “Van der Meer de Delft (Suite),” Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1866, p. 470. This was the second of Thoré-Bürger’s three Vermeer essays.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: TWO FORGED VERMEERS
“It is a frightful”…René Gimpel, Diary of an Art Dealer, 1918–1939, p. 230.
“an oracle of art-historical”…Albert Blankert, “‘Dame Winter’ by Caesar van Everdingen,” in his Selected Writings on Dutch Painting, p. 209.
“WE MUST SAY,” they added…These excerpts from Duveen’s correspondence can be found at the Getty Research Institute, which houses the entire Duveen archives, or on microfilm in the Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I consulted them. See Box 300, reel 155, folder 9 of the microfilms.
Each time a new Vermeer appeared…Arthur Wheelock’s brilliant essay “The Story of Two Vermeer Forgeries” is by far the best account of this Vermeer fever and the follies it inspired. Much of my discussion in this chapter and the next follows Wheelock’s essay.
“It was not without emotion”…This is Wheelock’s translation in his “Two Forgeries” essay, p. 273. The original passage is in Seymour de Ricci, “Le quarante-et-unième Vermeer,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 16 (1927): 305–10. The quoted passage begins on p. 306. (The title means “The Forty-first Vermeer.”)
Mellon had purchased…“The Girl with the Red Hat,” in Wheelock, ed. Johannes Vermeer, p. 165.
“a double-entry bookkeeper”…Behrman, pp. 254–55.
Mellon had not revealed…David Cannadine, Mellon, pp. 130–31.
“Duveen,” one biographer tells us…Meryle Secrest, Duveen, p. 303.
By the time Mellon had walked…Ibid.
In 1936, when Mellon…Wheelock, “Two Forgeries,” p. 275.
In recent years…Wheelock, “Two Forgeries,” p. 275.
“It’s just impossible”…Author interview, Dec. 19, 2005.
That forger, he argues…Wheelock writes on p. 271 of “Two Forgeries” that “circumstantial evidence convinces me that all four of these paintings [Mellon’s two Vermeers and De Groot’s two Halses] originated in the workshop of Theodorus van Wijngaarden.” On p. 426 he labels reproductions of A Boy Smoking and the Smiling Girl as “probably
Theodorus van Wijngaarden,” and on p. 427 he makes the same attribution for The Lacemaker. As noted in chapter 24, Hope Werness follows Marijke van den Brandhof in attributing the two “Halses” to Van Meegeren.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE EXPERT’S EYE
“To hear almost every year”…W. R. Valentiner, “A Newly Discovered Vermeer,” Art in America, April 1928, p. 107.
Arthur Wheelock points out…Wheelock, “Two Forgeries,” p. 273.
In a discussion of the Smiling…Broos, “Un celebre Peijntre,” p. 65.
“genuine and extraordinarily beautiful”…Echt of Onecht? Oog of Chemie? (The title means True or False? Eye or Chemistry?). My quotation follows the translation of Harry van de Waal, “Forgery as a Stylistic Problem,” in Aspects of Art Forgery, p. 9. Van de Waal’s essay, especially the sections on how hard it is for artists and forgers to escape their own era, is dazzling.
“magnificent in the contrast of colors”…Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, “Some Recently Discovered Works by Frans Hals,” The Burlington Magazine 45 (1924) 87.
“This little gem”…De Groot, “Recently Discovered,” p. 87.
If he was wrong, he roared…Van de Waal, p. 10, quoting Echt of Onecht?
“I should have to admit”…Ibid.
An array of scientific tests…Otto Kurz, Fakes, p. 60.
A modern restorer might…De Groot, Echt of Onecht?
Knowing that the standard…Wheelock, “Two Forgeries,” p. 272.
“As I am firmly convinced”…Kurz, p. 61.
“the inexpertness of the experts”…This remark and the one about the Dreyfus case are from Van de Waal, p. 10.
Seeing where things…Kurz, p. 60.
“probably painted about 1625–30”…De Groot, “Recently