The Forger's Spell - Edward Dolnick [69]
“I did not feel good about it,” Hannema recalled, “but La Tour was just beginning to draw attention, and maybe I could pick it up for a reasonable price.” The black-clad family pushed Hannema into a candle-lit room. The painting hung on the wall above an old, emaciated woman lying dead in her bed.
“Please, monsieur. Just look.”
Hannema took off his shoes, borrowed a flashlight, and climbed onto the bed. The old woman’s body shifted a bit as Hannema studied the painting from different angles. It was a pleasant picture, he announced when he turned off the flashlight, but unfortunately a fake.
HANNEMA TREATED THE Boymans as his personal kingdom—the museum’s flower arrangements could not be changed without his approval—but he managed to enlist powerful allies on his side. To start with, Rotterdam was a wealthy city. Better yet, it was a wealthy city with an inferiority complex. Rotterdam stood to Amsterdam roughly as Chicago to New York, a city of energy and bustle and new money that resented and envied the manicured nails of its tonier, more cultured rival.
Rotterdam’s money came from shipping. Though standoffish by nature, Hannema knew how to woo and charm when he had to. He courted Rotterdam’s two biggest shipping tycoons, one named Van der Vorm and the other Van Beuningen, and coaxed one large donation after another from them. Van der Vorm was the earthier of the two, with a deep interest in dogs and horses, but he also fancied himself an art collector. Van Beuningen was more civic-minded, more interested in chamber music and opera and suchlike, and an art collector on a grander scale. Both men had bought themselves Rembrandts, but Van Beuningen also owned drawings and paintings by Michelangelo and El Greco and Dürer and Hals and Van Gogh.* (Despite their wealth, neither man spent money recklessly. Van Beuningen saved half-smoked cigars to finish later, as if to flaunt his thriftiness. “Never throw anything away,” he would say as he rummaged through his cigar case for a usable stub.)
The two millionaires were rivals, and Hannema cagily played them off against each other. Had Van der Vorm recently raised his profile by helping the Boymans finance a purchase? Perhaps Van Beuningen, with his deep understanding of art, might see fit to help the museum, too, as he had already done so often and so generously?
In time, when the two magnates began competing to put their hands on a Vermeer, their rivalry would put millions of dollars into Van Meegeren’s pocket. Throughout Van Meegeren’s story, rivalry was a major theme. Rotterdam and Amsterdam were rivals for prestige; so were Van der Vorm and Van Beuningen; so were Hitler and Goering. In the 1930s and ’40s, these various rivals had one thing in common: they all wanted a Vermeer for themselves.
Grootvorst aan de Maas: D. G. van Beuningen,
Harry van Wijnen
D. G. van Beuningen
Grootvorst aan de Maas: D. G. van Beuningen,
Harry van Wijnen
W. van der Vorm
Competition sometimes inspires contestants to do better than they had known they could. Not here. In these contests, the spur of competition would drive the rivals to plunge blindly ahead, consequences be damned. Han van Meegeren’s great skill, or great good fortune, was to turn that mindless fever to his own advantage.
BY 1927, THE Boymans Museum had outgrown its home. Prodded by Hannema, the city of Rotterdam announced that it would finance a grand, new museum, “a building with serenity and