The Forger's Spell - Edward Dolnick [147]
Van der Meer Mohr has written several essays that highlight his findings. See “Eerherstel voor Abraham Bredius?” Tableau 18, no. 5 (April 1996): 39–45. (The title means “Rehabilitation for Abraham Bredius?” The article includes a summary in English.) See also Van der Meer Mohr’s two-part article “Bredius en zijn ‘Emmausgängers van Vermeer’: Een Nieuwe Reconstructie,” Origine nos. 5 and 6 (2006).
Bredius “knew himself”…Lord Kilbracken, Van Meegeren: Master Forger, p. 101. Thomas Hoving writes in the same vein in False Impressions, p. 171. “Van Meegeren had learned that to foist a forgery on the world one had only to fool a single expert. Once he had been taken in, the mark would do all the work to convince the rest of the world that an unknown masterwork had been found.”
“Bredius’ authority on Vermeer matters”…Blankert, “The Case of Van Meegeren,” p. 48.
Bredius’s assistant, Hans Schneider…Ibid., p. 51.
“I meant to have my picture hang”…Sepp Schüller, Forgers, Dealers, Experts: Strange Chapters in the History of Art, p 97. Schüller does not give a source, and I have not been able to find the remark elsewhere.
CHAPTER THIRTY: DIRK HANNEMA
Tall, handsome, aristocratic…The summary of Hannema’s career in this chapter is based on Max Pam’s essay “De tragiek van het onfeilbare oog. Over Dirk Hannema,” in his De Armen van de inktvis. (The title means “The Tragedy of an Infallible Eye.”)
“Never throw anything away”…Pam, “Het onfeilbare oog”
Van Beuningen refused…Pierre Cabanne, The Great Collectors, p. 140. Van Beuningen’s painting, sometimes called the Little ‘Tower of Babel,’ is now in Rotterdam’s Boymans Museum; Brueghel’s more famous Tower of Babel hangs in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.
“a building with serenity”…Ibid.
“what to many had long seemed”…Broos, “Un celebre Peijntre,” p. 61.
“Never in living memory…Ibid.
One hundred thousand enthralled…Pam, “Het onfeilbare oog.”
“Next to Rembrandt,” museumgoers read…Broos, “Un celebre Peijntre,” p. 61.
“Each creation [of Vermeer’s]”…D. Hannema and A. van Schendel, Jr., Noord-en Zuid-Nederlandsche Schilderkunst der XVIIe eeuw, pp. 14–16.
A Dutch art historian argued…W. R. Juynboll assigned the Magdalene Under the Cross (which Hannema had assigned to Vermeer) to Tournier. Juynboll’s observation appeared not in an article about the Hannema exhibition but in a review of a book by Alfred Leroy,
Histoire de la peinture francaise au XVIIe siècle (1600–1700). See Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, March 10, 1936.
In their Vermeer books…Blankert, “The Case of Van Meegeren,” p. 53.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: THE CHOICE
“It is unique in the history”…Russell, Sunday Times [of London], Oct. 23, 1955.
“How long would it take you”…Ronald D. Spencer, ed., The Expert versus the Object, p. 205.
“On one hand there are the rare”…Hannema and van Schendel, Jr., pp. 14–16.
“It is,” the art historian Christopher Wright…Wright, Vermeer, p. 20.
there was no agreement in the 1930s…Blankert, personal communication, Dec. 12, 2005.
Piltdown Man…For the best short account of the Piltdown affair, see Stephen Jay Gould’s essay “Piltdown Revisited” in The Panda’s Thumb (New York: Norton, 1982).
“Man at first…was merely an Ape”…Ibid., p. 117.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE CARAVAGGIO CONNECTION
Caravaggio was a brilliant, mischievous choice…See, for example, the suggestion of the Belgian sculptor and critic Jean Decoen (who was destined to