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By Root 1653 0

but he got the big story right—Vermeer was as good as Thoré-Bürger claimed. And Thoré-Bürger did more than simply argue his case in the press. He also purchased four Vermeers, which nowadays no one but a Bill Gates could manage, for the equivalent of a few thousand dollars each in today’s dollars. They were Woman with a Pearl Necklace, now at the Staatliche Museum in Berlin; The Concert, stolen from the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 and still missing*; and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal and Young Woman Standing at a Virginal, today both at the National Gallery in London.

IN HIS THREE essays, Thoré-Bürger assigned seventy-three works to Vermeer. This was vastly too hopeful. Today the accepted number of Vermeers is only half that figure. Thoré-Bürger’s essay ran with nine illustrations depicting works by Vermeer. Only four of the nine were in fact Vermeers.

The neglect of Vermeer had been an “injustice,” Thoré-Bürger wrote, and he had no illusion that he had said the last word. On the contrary, he urged his fellow art lovers to help him in the search for more Vermeers. “I hope that researchers in all countries will have the chance to discover new paintings by Van Der Meer,” he wrote, “and I will be grateful if they will communicate their discoveries to me.”

For forgers, Thoré-Bürger’s rediscovery of Vermeer opened the gates to the best of all possible worlds. What could be a more tempting combination than swooning enthusiasm for Vermeer coupled with vast ignorance of what counted as a Vermeer?

Han van Meegeren belonged to a later generation, but Thoré-Bürger had helped to propel Vermeer into the ranks of international stars, and he would stay there. Van Meegeren and his brethren welcomed Thoré-Bürger’s drumbeating on Vermeer’s behalf, but they had no desire to rummage through old auction house records. If collectors and connoisseurs wanted new paintings by Vermeer, there were easier ways to provide them.

Part Three

The Selling of Christ at Emmaus

22

TWO FORGED VERMEERS

As Vermeer’s reputation soared ever higher, the frenzy to own a Vermeer grew in proportion. With demand so high, it was inevitable that someone would find a way to increase the supply. Suddenly, in the 1920s and ’30s, after a near-drought that had lasted two and a half centuries, Vermeers began popping up everywhere.

The renowned art dealer René Gimpel kept a diary that covered the years between the world wars. References to newfound Vermeers dot the pages. On June 9, 1923, for example, Gimpel wrote excitedly that “a new Vermeer has just been discovered in Paris.” (In 1929, he appended a somber footnote: “It is a frightful picture, probably by [the minor French painter] Bourdichon.”)

Two weeks after Gimpel’s find, the Paris office of Duveen Brothers, the biggest art dealer of the day, sent a cable to their New York branch: “VERMEER PORTRAIT,” it shouted. “WONDERFUL, REPRESENTING PLEASING YOUNG MAN ABOUT 18 YEARS OLD, LONG CURLY CHESTNUT HAIR AND BROWN EYES.”

In Paris and London and New York, the art world buzzed with excited chatter about Vermeer sightings. In August 1927, Duveen found a new Vermeer of a “girl doing lacework.” In January 1928, Gimpel found “a new Vermeer” of his own. In February, he was at it again. “I’ve discovered another Vermeer,” he exulted. In October 1929, it was Duveen’s turn again. The latest Vermeer depicted a girl holding a cat. “Certainly very well painted and most attractive in every way,” the Duveen agent reported, but he went on to say that one expert had judged the picture “too dainty, sweet and soft in conception and execution to be a Vermeer.” This was discouraging, but the “picture so satisfactory in many ways and so desirable if right,” the cable went on, “that we are wiring Schmidt-Degener come see.”

Schmidt-Degener was a Dutch Vermeer connoisseur with a reputation, in one scholar’s words, as “an oracle of art-historical insight.” He would eventually become one of the biggest fish snared in Van Meegeren’s net. When Duveen presented him with the “girl with a cat” and asked if it was indeed