The Forger's Spell - Edward Dolnick [93]
But Bredius did exist. And he had once written a brief article that would have made the forger rub his hands in glee, if only he had known about it. Shortly after his discovery of Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Bredius had discussed that painting and another early Vermeer, Diana and Her Companions. His focus was on the unexpected links between the two paintings. Bredius mentioned three surprises. First, neither painting showed “a single spot of the peculiar pointillé that characterizes all the work of Vermeer.” Second, both works had “biblical and mythological subjects that occur in no other work by Vermeer.” Third, both paintings “deviate from all Vermeer’s other work,” because “in this period he was more influenced by the 17th-century Italian school.”
Contrary to the legend, the article was not famous but inconspicuous and insignificant. It appeared in a newspaper rather than an art journal, hidden on an inside page. It was not even a freestanding story but included in a roundup on “Literature and Art.” In any case, it ran in 1901, when Van Meegeren was only eleven years old. But without ever reading Bredius’s remarks, Van Meegeren produced a “missing Vermeer” that might as well have been painted to order from his specifications. No wonder poor Bredius fell so hard.
39
TWO WEEKS AND COUNTING
Throughout the fall of 1937, Bredius continued exhorting, encouraging, and pleading on behalf of Emmaus. “There are only 40 Vermeers and this is the most important one (and in my judgment, the most beautiful one),” he wrote Hannema on December 7. “If we wait, we’ll lose it.”
The next day Hannema wrote back in despair. He had just learned that Boon had transferred Emmaus to one of the biggest art dealers in Amsterdam, D. A. Hoogendijk. Hannema feared that the price would shoot up. “I had assembled a considerable sum already,” he moaned to Bredius, “but now I’m afraid all my efforts are in vain. This is a miserable story…”
Bredius fell into agonies, too, but his misery drove him to even more frantic efforts. He sent a barrage of letters flying around Holland. To the director of the Mauritshuis Museum: Emmaus is “authentic as gold…as important as The Nightwatch.” To the president of the Rembrandt Society: “There has to be a rich man who could buy it.” To everyone he lamented his own lack of resources: if only he could afford to buy the painting for Holland.
Finally, on December 13, some headway: The executive committee of the Rembrandt Society met to discuss Emmaus. Hannema testified to the painting’s greatness and pleaded for help with its purchase. The president of the society read rapturous excerpts from Bredius’s letters and telegrams. Willem Martin, once deputy director of the Mauritshuis under Bredius and now director in his own right, made an impassioned plea: “Everything possible must be done to preserve this unique work of art for the Netherlands.”
The committee pondered what it had heard and reached two conclusions. They would offer 50,000 guilders for the painting, roughly $300,000 in today’s dollars, and those committee members who had not yet seen Emmaus for themselves would go to Hoogendijk’s.
Two days later, Boon wrote to Bredius. The Rembrandt Society had trooped off to see Emmaus, and they had been wowed. The painting was a beauty and a masterpiece. They were wowed by the price, too. Hoogendijk was asking 520,000 guilders ($3.9 million today), and he had set a two-week deadline. If they hadn’t raised the money by then, the deal was off.
We can imagine Bredius, frail and frantic, with Boon’s note shaking in his hand as he read the lawyer’s honeyed threats. “I fervently hope they will be successful,” Boon wrote, for he regretted to say he would have to “categorically decline” any lower offer. “Would it, to my great regret, not be possible” to come to terms with the Rembrandt Society, there would be no choice but to let “America and En gland move into the picture.” It was all he could do, Boon hinted, to fend