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    The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century
    Unavailable
    The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century
    Unavailable
    The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century
    Ebook584 pages8 hours

    The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century

    By Edward Dolnick

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    New York Times Bestseller

    “Dolnick brilliantly re-creates the circumstances that made possible one of the most audacious frauds of the 20th century. And in doing so Dolnick plumbs the nature of fraud itself . . . an incomparable page turner.” —Boston Globe

    As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger’s Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. For seven years a no-account painter named Han van Meegeren managed to pass off his paintings as those of one of the most beloved and admired artists who ever lived. As Edward Dolnick reveals, his true genius lay in psychological manipulation, and he came within inches of fooling the world. Instead, he landed in an Amsterdam court on trial for his life. The Forger’s Spell is the gripping, true tale of this almost perfect crime.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061844591
    Author

    Edward Dolnick

    Edward Dolnick is the author of Down the Great Unknown, The Forger’s Spell, and the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist. A former chief science writer at the Boston Globe, he lives with his wife near Washington, D.C.

    Read more from Edward Dolnick

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    Reviews for The Forger's Spell

    4/5

    127 ratings14 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Bummer of a story on an art forger's life and times during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. There may have been many insights into how and why senior Nazi party officials obtained (read: looted, stole or pressured) artwork during WWII. However, I chose the book so as to read about Hans van Meegeren, described as "daring to impersonate Vermeer, centuries later. The con man's mark was Hermann Goering, one of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a fanatic collector of art." (quoting a public library description of Meegeren).The narrative did discuss van Meegeren but the theme was constantly derailed by an extensive interspersed war history ~ accounts of German atrocities towards the Jewish-Dutch population, the horrors of starvation of the entire population by the end of the war, and a general recitation of all the unsavoury art dealers making vast fortunes. Eventually, whatever artistic chicanery perpetuated by van Meegeren was lost amongst all the anecdotes. I stopped reading partway through when the actual focus of the book became tedious and repetitious, since most of the prose was irrelevant to the art forgery.
    • 5/5
      Not being an art person, I wasn't sure how I would like this, but i absolutely loved this book. I learned so much about the world of art forgery that I'd never heard before. The book does get a little tedious towards the end, but it is still well worth reading.
    • 4/5
      The author clearly did a lot of research for this book. Interesting detail into the efforts by the forger to get his materials - certain hues of oils, the canvases, etc. - to be able to pass muster. It's a bit of a choppy read, getting all this incredible information together - but I found it well worth the effort. If you appreciate art as well as a good WWII story, you'll enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      This an incredible book that weaves the art of art forgery (see what I did there?) with Hermann Goering and Adolf Hitler's frenzy for art perceived to be of value, and not "de-generate". The very well researched, at times sad, at other times funny. How the forger was caught was a fluke. By being outed as a forger, it probably saved VanMeegeren life - instead of a Nazi Sympathizer, it made him into a hero who fooled the enemy.The information about art critics, and how they assess a painting well done, and got to the heart of the it- art critics are human, and believe that they can spot a fake a mile off. When evidence is provided to show otherwise, they will often double down on the belief its a legit painting, to protect their "gut feeling" as much as to not be outed as a bad critic.
    • 4/5
      This book is about a famous forger of the 1930s and 1940s, Han Van Meegeren, who specialized in producing and selling paintings by Vermeer. He succeeded in convincing both art experts and the Nazi art collector Hermann Goering to purchase his creations for millions of dollars. Once he was unmasked, experts suddenly found his works to be ugly and easily distinguishable from authentic Vermeers. So this book is about the gullibility of the art world and is also full of interesting facts about art forgery. It also tells the saga of how van Meegeren was finally caught and (very lightly) punished.
    • 3/5
      Bottom line: This is a light-weight read on the topics listed in the title. Most useful if you're interested in how forgeries can get by the experts.There's a trend in non-fiction now-a-days to take a lot of vaguely related material and tie it together around one, usually obscure, event, thereby giving a broader picture of a particular period. This books wanders through the art world of the early 20th century and the place of the Dutch masters in it, life in The Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, the avarice of Nazi leaders, the art and craft of forgery, and the psychological aspects that go into making people believe things that aren't true. I was interested in all those things, but I thought the book was strongest on the last two. All the chapters are short and it's written with the idea that you might have skipped a chapter or two, so really important material is repeated. I found the prose readable, but most engrossing when discussing the art critics. It often sounds as if the writer were interviewing certain people, but looking at the bibliography, I think he's more quoting from previously published work.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of the man who swindled the Nazi head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, as well as fooled nearly the entire recognized European art world and became a multimillionaire in a matter of a few years by creating paintings that bore no resemblance to paintings by Johannes Vermeer, yet were passed off as just that. Confused? You bet.Being a novice to the subject of art forgery, I thought those who attempted forgery tried to make exact replicas of recognized art treasures not something totally unrecognizable but hey, what do I know? Very little, apparently. But the author explained it all in very easy to understand terms while at the same time, telling a very compelling story of what goes on in the mind of a forger/con man, an art connoisseur and the ill-informed general public. Three quarters of the book dealt with the hoarding of art treasures throughout Europe during WWII by Hitler, Goering and other Nazis, the aftermath of WWII and the recovery of the stolen goods and the trial of the world’s most intriguing forger. This was all unputdownable and read like a spy thriller. The other quarter was about the technical aspects of how the forgeries were done and the psychological intricacies that allowed the art connoisseurs to be fooled into thinking these very strange looking paintings had been completed by Vermeer. This was not quite as compelling but was necessary to complete the tale.Who was this man, Han Van Meegeren, forger extraordinaire? It turns out he was just a mediocre artist but a shrewd con artist who was nothing short of brilliant. He knew he had to do something different to pull this off. And he would have to lead them by nose to make the conclusion that he wanted them to make.”His care in choosing and then preparing a genuine seventeenth-century canvas, his success in crafting paints that would emerge from the oven lush and bright, his knack for inducing authentic-looking cracks in a painting’s surface, all served to disarm and distract his would-be investigators. When it came to the technical side of forgery, …Van Meegeren displayed something close to genius.” (Page 206)Where’s the Like button? Very highly recommended.
    • 2/5
      All the back history to the scam was interesting and informative, but Dolnick adds all this material about how the scam actually works on the psyche of the victims and it just goes on forever and seems to repeat itself.
    • 5/5
      Despite its ugly cover, Edward Dolnick's account of a 20th century Dutch Vermeer forgery is a marvel. Divided into short chapters, it offers a great mix of a failed but cunning artist, a zoo of museum directors and art experts as well as Nazi buffoons. The story is perfect for Hollywood (similar to the great German comedy Stonk about the forged Hitler diaries). The book also serves as a great introduction to Jan Vermeer, about whom it is difficult to fill a full book as so little is known about him. Combining his story with that of the failed artist turned forger Han van Meegeren is thus an enlightened choice.I love the book's background information about the necessary components of a forgery that range from the technical, the bureaucratic to the social. Producing a successful forgery takes skill and knowledge. Disclosing and discussing the elements of a Black Hat operation helps understand how the original was produced.The book has a narrative similarity to David Hockney's White Hat presentation of secret knowledge about 17th century art.One interesting aspect is the limited shelf life of a forgery: Directed at a contemporary audience, they do not age well. Successful forgeries have to straddle the uncanny valley of being close but not too close to an original, confirming an audience's preconception with a variation of a theme that uniquely appeals to their taste. No wonder that the "modern Vermeer" was preferred by its 20th century audience - it was built with their preferences in mind. A forger must also mine the vanity and possessiveness of men (and some women) with deep pockets. Han van Meegeren's forgery exposed quite a few naked emperors among the world's most renowned museums and art experts and the rich men that support them. With the recent reappearance of many works lost during WWII in Russia, the forgery game will bloom anew.The last great element of the book are the Nazi buffoons and failed connoisseurs. Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring. Their reign of terror always has this element of a hoax that Charlie Chaplin captured so well in The Great Dictator. It is often difficult to understand why the masses fall for certain men and fads. In hindsight, it is often difficult to understand what were their attractions. Has there ever been a dictator or mogul (cf. Citizen Kane) who hasn't turned into his own parody? How Hitler and Göring competed in looting Europe's museums and private collections is a tragicomic farce whose enjoyment is handicapped by the path of destruction and misery they caused. The Nazi collaborator Han van Meegeren comes off rather too well in this book. The short video at Rotterdam's Boijmans Museum that today houses his forgeries points out that the unpopular van Meegeren saw his art career flourish under the Nazis. Bad taste and bad leadership often coalesce.Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      The Forger's Spell falls somewhere between the last two books I reviewed, Provenance and Stealing the Mystic Lamb. While not a completely straightforward recounting of a crime and its unraveling like Provenance, it is a more engaging study of art crime than Stealing the Mystic Lamb. It tells the story of the forgery of a series of Vermeer paintings by Han Van Meegeren in the Holland of the 1930s and 40s. There is a thread of Van Meegeren throughout the book, but it is not until Parts 4 and 5 that you begin to see his full story woven together.As Dolnick says in his preface, "the central question is not whodunit but, instead, howdunit?" In answering this question, Dolnick not only presents the facts but also uses interesting and relevant examples from various disciplines and eras to illustrate his points.The reader learns about Vermeer, other historical fraud cases, and the Nazi obsession with great art. This background provides useful insight into the case of Van Meegeren. World War II and the Nazis play an especially central role in the eventual exposure of this art fraud.Overall, I enjoyed The Forger's Spell. While I still prefer a more fiction-like narrative, Dolnick's writing style was engaging. He strikes a fine balance between historical study and storytelling. If you like art, crime, or even World War II stories, I think you'll like The Forger's Spell.
    • 4/5
      I'd divide this into 2 works, one that covered the voracious hoarding of art by Hitler and Goering during the Nazi invasion into Europe, and then one that covered the history of art forgery, with special attention given to the forged works that were attributed to Johan Vermeer by a number of artists, including Han van Meegeren. I never knew there was so much involved in trying to pass off forged works, especially forgeries of the Old Masters. Focusing on van Meegeren was key because of all the forgers out there, he seems to have managed one of the most impressive forgeries in centuries, fooling museum curators, art directors and reknown art critics. The path towards becoming a forger and then the business of selling forgeries was nicely detailed as well as how they were uncovered. The book also covers the various tests that paintings go through if their authenticity is called into question.The parts of the book that focused on Goering and his obsession with art, jewelery and clothes was pretty entertaining. His only rival to grabbing the great works was Hitler, to whom he wisely gave in whenever Hitler looked to be interested in acquiring something that Goering himself wanted. I had thought that the Nazis stole most of the art they acquired, but with Goering and Hitler, it appears that they took pride in not stealing outright, but 'persuading' the owners to let them purchase the works. It was amazing how many paintings and sculptures were acquired by both Hitler and Goering by the end of WWII, and the extent to which they tried to hide their treasures when the Nazis surrendered. The personalities of art critics were also covered and I think they have affirmed my belief that I don't need their advise to tell me what art I like what I don't.
    • 4/5
      Talk about a roller coaster ride in the world of nonfiction! This book brings together an interesting blend of egos at the time of the Second World War: an artist craving the attention he believes he deserves, an art historian looking to relive his earlier career highlights, and Hitler's second-in-command, self-proclaimed Renaissance man Herman Goring. This true tale brings to light the short falls inherent to the art world, from misattributions and faulty provenance to the power of groupthink. A must read for New Yorkers flocking to the Met to see the current Vermeer show, as well as hungry art collectors.
    • 4/5
      As previous reviewers have mentioned, Dulnick does jump around in his narrative quite often, going from Goering's struggle with Hitler over Europe's artwork to the psychology of a forgery to van Meegeren's attempts to sell his forgeries. However, I didn't find Dulnick's story-telling style to detract from the story nearly as much as the others.
    • 3/5
      Here we have a non-fictional account of the 20th century's most astoundingly, resoundingly, and undeservedly successful art forgery scam.In very, very brief, it's the story of a Dutch forger who cons Goering out of *boatloads* of cash for fake Vermeers. The book presents us with the fakes in a photo section. I simply cannot believe that anyone not completely blind and thus viewing these horribly hideous daubs in Braille could be taken in by them.There are quite a few characters involved in this scam, and so Dolnick bounces around more than Roger Federer's practice balls, with equally nausea-inducing speed and ballistic-ness. (Ballisticity?)Chapters are short. Sentences aren't. Story is fascinating. Piecing it together isn't. Vermeers are gorgeous. Forgeries are so Gawdawful ugly it makes the viewer want to weep from outrage (sort of like the effect Dickens or Shakespeare has on the sensible modern reader, or cats have on the non-demon-possessed).Recommended...but what a lukewarm recommendation it is. I wish I'd been able to follow one thread through the book, instead of eight (by my count), and I wish I'd been given halftone illos in the text instead of, or prefereably in addition to, a photo insert because I would have liked to be able to see what Dolnick was talking about as he was talking about it. I felt that was a bad decision on the publisher's part. Left me sort of hanging there, unsure of what I was supposed to be seeing.... Well. Anyway. If you like art, and if you're a fan of puzzle stories with tidy endings, here it is.