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Han van Meegeren - Self Portrait

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Self Portrait

SKU: 6650
Signed with initials, titled to reverse
Pastel with white and red highlights
23 1/4 x 17 1/2 in (59 x 44.5 cm) 

Size:
Height – 59cm
Width – 44.5cm

DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
Gemeentemuseum Arnhem РAndr√© van der Vossen?
Presentation:
framed

 

 

In the summer of 1914, van Meegeren moved his family to Scheveningen. That year, he completed the diploma examination at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. The diploma allowed him to teach, and he took a position as the assistant to Professor Gips, the Professor of Drawing and Art History, for the small monthly salary of 75 guldens. In March 1915, his daughter Pauline was born, later called Inez.[ To supplement his income, Han sketched posters and painted pictures for the commercial art trade, generally Christmas cards, still-life, landscapes, and portraits.
Van Meegeren showed his first paintings publicly in The Hague, where they were exhibited from April to May 1917 at the Kunstzaal Pictura. In December 1919, he was accepted as a select member to the Haagse Kunstkring, an exclusive society of writers and painters who met weekly on the premises of the Ridderzaal.  He undertook numerous journeys to Belgium, France, Italy, and England, and acquired a name for himself as a talented portraitist. He earned stately fees through commissions from English and American socialites who spent their winter vacations on the C√¥te d’Azur. His clients were impressed by his understanding of the 17th-century techniques of the Dutch masters. Throughout his life, van Meegeren signed his own paintings with his own signature.
From 1923, after the break up of his marriage, he dedicated himself to portraiture and began producing forgeries to increase his income.
His most successful forgery was Supper at Emmaus, created in 1937 while living in the south of France. This painting was hailed as a real Vermeer by famous art experts such as Abraham Bredius. Bredius acclaimed it as “the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft” and wrote of the “wonderful moment” of being “confronted with a hitherto unknown painting by a great master”.
In December 1943, the van Meegerens moved to Amsterdam where they took up residence in the exclusive Keizersgracht 321. His forgeries had earned him between 5.5 and 7.5 million guilders (more than twenty million pounds in today’s terms) which he used  to purchase a large amount of real estate, jewelry, and works of art, and to further his luxurious lifestyle. (In a 1946 interview, he told Marie Louise Doudart de la Grée that he owned 52 houses and 15 country houses).
During World War II, wealthy Dutchmen wanted to prevent a sellout of Dutch art to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and they avidly bought van Meegeren’s forgeries, thinking them the work of the masters. Nevertheless, a falsified “Vermeer” ended up in the possession of Reichsmarschall Hermann G√∂ring. Following the war, the forgery was discovered in G√∂ring’s possession, and van Meegeren was arrested on 29 May 1945 as a collaborator, as officials believed that he had sold Dutch cultural property to the Nazis. This would have been an act of treason, the punishment for which was death, so van Meegeren confessed to the less serious charge of forgery instead. He was convicted on falsification and fraud charges on 12 November 1947, after a brief but highly publicized trial, and was sentenced to a modest punishment of one year in prison.[3] He did not serve out his sentence, however; he died 30 December 1947, in the Valerius Clinic in Amsterdam, after two heart attacks.

 

 

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THE ARTIST

Han van Meegeren
Han
van Meegeren
1889 - 1947

Henricus Antonius ‘Han’ van Meegeren (10 October 1889 ‘ 30 December 1947) was a Dutch painter and portraitist and is considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century.

As a child, van Meegeren developed an enthusiasm for the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, and later set out to become an artist himself. When art critics decried his work as tired and derivative, van Meegeren felt that they had destroyed his career. Thereupon, he decided to prove his talent to the critics by forging paintings of some of the world’s most famous artists, including Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch and Johannes Vermeer. He so well replicated the styles and colours of the artists that the best art critics and experts of the time regarded his paintings as genuine and sometimes exquisite. His most successful forgery was Supper at Emmaus, created in 1937 while living in the south of France. This painting was hailed by some of the world’s foremost art experts as the finest Vermeer they had ever seen.

During World War II, wealthy Dutchmen, wanting to prevent a sellout of Dutch art to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, avidly bought van Meegeren’s forgeries. Nevertheless, a falsified “Vermeer” ended up in the possession of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. Following the war, the forgery was discovered in Göring’s possession, and van Meegeren was arrested on 29 May 1945 as a collaborator, as officials believed that he had sold Dutch cultural property to the Nazis. This would have been an act of treason, the punishment for which was death, so van Meegeren fearfully confessed to the forgery. On 12 November 1947, after a brief but highly publicized trial, he was convicted of falsification and fraud charges, and was sentenced to a modest punishment of one year in prison. He never served his sentence, however; before he could be incarcerated, he suffered a heart attack and died on 30 December 1947. It is estimated that van Meegeren duped buyers, including the government of the Netherlands, out of the equivalent of more than thirty million dollars in today’s money.

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