The Forger's Spell - Edward Dolnick [87]
Bredius’s penmanship was clear and bold, and his swirling, looping signature his customary work of calligraphic elegance. Never, in the years to come, would he make any reference to the mysterious circumstances of his first encounter with this “gorgeous work.”
37
THE LAMB AT THE BANK
With the personable Boon out front playing the role of salesman—Bredius pronounced him “a charming man”—Van Meegeren could stay out of sight in Roquebrune, watching and waiting to see who nibbled at his bait.
The forger’s choice of Bredius as first target showed his shrewdness. After the Harpsichord fiasco, Van Meegeren had no way of knowing how Bredius would respond to the appearance of another Vermeer. Two opposing outcomes seemed plausible. With Harpsichord, Bredius had taken a public position only to find that no one backed him. He might shy away from taking a similar risk a second time. On the other hand, perhaps he would leap at an opportunity to vindicate himself. Given a second chance, would Bredius work all the harder to round up support, to show the world that his judgment was as keen as it had ever been?
Faced with such contrary possibilities, Van Meegeren had made the decision to turn to Bredius once again. Almost at once, events would prove that he knew his man.
Bredius’s campaign in support of Emmaus began immediately after Boon’s August visit and continued at full force for months. He started with Hannema, at the Boymans Museum. In countless letters, Bredius praised Emmaus in bursts of wild, italicized prose (“Vermeer’s most important painting…surely his most beautiful work. Here he gives his soul.”). He bombarded Hannema and many others with schemes about how to raise the fortune that it would surely take to purchase Emmaus. He wrote to the Rembrandt Society, whose mission was to acquire works of art for Holland’s museums, about how important the painting was and how tragic it would be if Holland were to lose it. He wrote to the minister who headed the Department of Arts and Sciences proposing that the state confer one of its greatest honors, the Order of the Dutch Lion, on the wealthy buyer who stepped forward to purchase Emmaus for the nation.
Emmaus obsessed Bredius. Driven by the conviction that the picture’s acceptance would provide him both fame and vengeance at a stroke, he fought for it with manic, reckless zeal. Two thousand years before, a Chinese philosopher had anticipated the whole story. “When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill,” wrote Chuang Tzu. “If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets—he is out of his mind! His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting—and the need to win drains him of power.”
Bredius knew Vermeer’s work backward and forward. But when he saw a prize of gold, he forgot all he knew.
BREDIUS HAD LEARNED the limitations of solo combat with Lady and Gentleman at the Harpsichord. In Hannema, his first recruit, he found an ally whose ardor matched his own. Swept away by Bredius’s descriptions of Emmaus, Hannema overflowed with excitement before he ever saw the picture. It was Hannema who had put together the blockbuster Vermeer show in 1935, Hannema who had hoped against hope for a new Vermeer that