The Forger's Spell - Edward Dolnick [145]
“from a dealer”…Ibid.
“In the art of painting”…De Groot, Echt of Onecht?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: A FORGER’S LESSONS
Hope Werness declares outright…Werness, “Han van Meegeren fecit,” p. 18. Werness cites Van den Brandhof, pp. 67–77.
Küffner sawed the panel…Sepp Schüller tells this story in Forgers, Dealers, Experts; see pp. 18–21. For a more recent, skeptical take, see Daniel Hess, “Dürer als Nürnberger Markenartikel,” in Quasi Centrum Europae Europa kauft in Nürnberg 1400–1800, ed. Hermann Maué et al., 2002.
“he had had the good fortune”…De Groot, Echt of Onecht?
Hals’s painting at the Schwerin museum…Van den Brandhof makes this point, p. 70.
“evidently the same boy”…This remark (and De Groot’s exclamations of delight) are in De Groot, “Recently Discovered,” p. 87.
“In no other field”…Van de Waal, p. 13.
The English painter Leo Stevenson…Leo Stevenson, “A Genuine Copy?,” available online at www.leostevenson.com.
a “characteristic fairly early work”…Wheelock, “Two Forgeries,” p. 273.
“one which, up to the present”…Ibid., p. 274.
The esteemed Vermeer scholar…Ibid.
Berenson’s dismissal…Simpson, Artful Partners, p. 67.
“highly imaginative”…Jorgen Wadum, “Contours of Vermeer,” Vermeer Studies, p. 223.
“Gratuitous nastiness is part”…Author interview, Nov. 8, 2005.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: BREDIUS
The best brief essay on Bredius’s life is “Abraham Bredius, a Biography,” by Louise Barnouw-de Ranitz, the source of many of the facts in this chapter. It is available online at the Bredius Museum website, http://www.museumbredius.nl/biography.htm.
he had been the first to praise…“Vermeer slays them all,” Bredius wrote. “The head of a girl, which would almost have one forget that one is looking at a canvas, and the unique glow of light, take sole hold of your attention.” See “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Wheelock, ed., Johannes Vermeer, p. 168.
His colleague’s book was “horrible”…Catherine Scallen, Rembrandt, Reputation, and the Practice of Conoisseurship, p. 118.
he lent the museum twenty-five…Marjolein de Boer and Josephine Leistra, Bredius, Rembrandt en het Mauritshuis!!!
“Jumpy, agitated, nervous”…Barnouw-de Ranitz.
“murder of the century”…Theo van der Meer and Paul Snijders, “Ernstige moraliteits—toestanden in de residentie. Een ‘whodunnit’ over het Haagse zedenschandaal van 1920,” Pro Memorie 4, no. 2 (2002): 373–408. (The title means “Moral Crisis in the Capital. A Whodunit About the Scandal of 1920.”)
“consumed by jealousy”…Barnouw-de Ranitz.
“What a heresy, is it not”…Abraham Bredius, “Ein Pseudo-Vermeer in der Berliner Galerie,” Kunst-Chronik 18 (1883): 67–71. (The title means “A Pseudo-Vermeer in the Berlin Gallery.”) Ben Broos discusses Bredius’s essay in “Vermeer: Malice and Misconception.” See Gaskell and Jonker, eds., Vermeer Studies, p. 23.
“Rembrandt becomes closer and more precious”…Barnouw-de Ranitz.
“A short time ago”…Bredius, “An Unknown Rembrandt Portrait,” The Burlington Magazine 48, 1926, p. 205.
“His door was always”…Marjolein de Boer, “Bredius Museum Reborn.” This essay is available online at http://www.art.nl/journal/article.aspx?ID=8.
“Let us not forget”…Barnouw-de Ranitz.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: “WITHOUT ANY DOUBT!”
“With this acquisition of the new”…“Allegory of Faith,” Wheelock, ed. Johannes Vermeer, p. 194.
Bredius picked up the picture…“Allegory of Faith,” Wheelock, ed., Johannes Vermeer, pp. 194–95, and Bailey, Vermeer p. 226.
Nor do many other…“Allegory of Faith,” Ibid., p. 195, 20n.
And the Utrecht Vermeer…“Christ in the House of Mary and Martha,” Wheelock, ed., Johannes Vermeer, pp. 94–95.
There an art dealer threw it in…Ibid., pp. 90, 94.
“I told him it was a Vermeer”…[London] Morning Post, Jan. 14, 1927, p. 9.
“Exactly as the M[aurits] huis Diana”…“Diana and Her Companions,” Wheelock, ed., Johannes Vermeer, p. 100.
“Diana never can have been his”…P.T.A. Swillens, Johannes Vermeer. See “Works Wrongly Attributed to Vermeer,” pp. 157–64. The Diana quote is from p. 159, the Christ in the House quote from p. 162.
In 1989 the great scholar J. M. Montias…“Young