by Frank Wynne
Han’s genius in The Supper at Emmaus does not lie in the trickery he used to conjure the disciples, nor in the mythical figure who may have posed for the Christ; it is in fulfilling the prophecies of Bredius and Hannema and creating out of whole cloth a ‘middle period’ for Johannes Vermeer van Delft. Taking Caravaggio’s dynamic composition, Han simplified the elements to create a sense of tranquillity more proper to the Dutch interiors of Vermeer’s mature period. A bright window on the left – barely a luminous rectangle – prefigures every Vermeer window in the decades to come. The colours are sparse and quintessentially those of Vermeer: Christ’s robe is almost pure ultramarine, that of Cleopas a mixture of gamboge and lead-tin yellow; the serving girl’s hooded tunic is burnt umber and carbon black; the frugal linen tablecloth, lead white and beneath it – in a gesture worthy of Vermeer himself – Han lavished pure ultramarine on a humble undercloth. He was careful even to follow Vermeer’s characteristic use of green earth in the deep flesh-tones.
The still life at the centre of the piece was the easiest: Han had painted so many still lives in the seventeenth-century style that the sheen of the pewter plates, the glint on the empty wineglasses, the flash of light on the long neck of the porcelain jug were second nature to him. Where Christ’s hand is poised above the bread to be broken, Han added a burst of pointillé – thick dabs of paint like scattered grains of light – a technique Vermeer first used in The Milkmaid.
When Han finally stepped back from his painting he had good reason to be pleased. Though it looked unlike any Vermeer the world had ever seen, still there were subtle hints which an expert might detect – in the colours, the composition, the face of the disciple Cleopas. It was, he felt, his finest work. But there was much still to be done.
The decision whether or not to sign the painting must have troubled Han. Barely half of Vermeer’s paintings bear a signature, and many of these are doubtful. A signature is so easily forged that Han knew it would be unlikely to persuade an expert – in fact, a prominent signature might even arouse suspicion. Perhaps, Han thought, he should leave the painting unsigned; it would be all the more satisfying to leave it to the critic to make the attribution. Until this moment, nothing Han had done was illegal – his crime was in signing the work with the graceful and ornate flourish IV Meer. It was a curious choice: the signature is similar to that which appears on the late Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring rather than to the simpler Meer found on Christ in the House of Martha and Mary – the painting to which Han expected the Emmaus to be compared. Perhaps the elegant cursive of Vermeer’s full signature was too tempting; perhaps Han felt that the Emmaus was too unlike any known Vermeer to risk leaving it unsigned. It may be that Han thought he had earned the right to sign the master’s name.
Though in his years of experimentation Han had painted a handful of old masters and submitted them to his furnace, it is not difficult to imagine that Han stood chain-smoking for two hours, twitching and fretting by the oven as the Emmaus cooked. Any fault in the thermostat could destroy six months of work, six years of planning. Lead white would be particularly sensitive to any small shift in temperature, caramelising the tablecloth and the jug. There was no disaster: the paint came out as it had gone in – the colours powerful and shimmering, the scene somehow more miraculous. Han quickly painted a thin layer of varnish over the surface and waited as it dried and the crackle surged up from the layer beneath. Then, laying the painting flat he took a broad brush and a pot of Indian ink and covered the entire surface of the painting, watching as this blue-black veil dried on the varnish, obscuring everything. Then, taking a rag dipped in soap and water, he washed away the ink before removing the layer of varnish using a turpentine and alcohol solution. All that remained of the ink was a web of dark lines like centuries of dust. Then carefully, almost tenderly, Han varnished the painting, using a tinted brownish varnish which he allowed to dry overnight.
In the morning, not daring to look at his perfect creation, he seized a palette knife and, before he could change his mind, slashed at the canvas. No painting could have survived three centuries without damage. He made a small tear in the fabric and gouged several areas of paint. With deliberate clumsiness, he re-sewed the small jagged tear in the canvas just above Christ’s right hand and with studied carelessness repainted those deep gashes in the surface paint. Then, one last time, he took a lightly tinted varnish and applied it to Die Emmausgängers. His genuine 1937 Vermeer was complete.
12
A QUESTION OF ATTRIBUTION
Men are so simple and
yield so readily to the
desires of the moment
that he who will trick
will always find another
who will suffer to be tricked.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Barely five miles from Roquebrune where Han was carefully re-attaching the Emmaus to its original stretcher, the respected critic Abraham Bredius, now retired, was just beginning his day. On this balmy August morning, the Mediterranean sun lapped at the shutters of the Villa Evelyne to which he had retired fifteen years earlier. Despite the late summer warmth, Bredius was swathed in the eccentric array of furs and shawls he always favoured. As he sipped his morning coffee, he leafed through his notes and began jotting some thoughts for an article he was writing for the Burlington. Had he known that barely five miles away a second-rate artist was plotting to destroy his reputation he would have barked his stentorian laugh. He was too old now, he had a lifetime of study and achievement behind him, his reputation was impervious.
As a young man, Abraham Bredius had preferred honest arrogance to hypocritical humility. Now almost eighty-two, he had yet to find a reason to change. Unlike Han, he had not been born in a provincial backwater with a philistine father but into a prominent family of Dutch gunpowder merchants. He grew up in a magnificent townhouse on Amsterdam’s Prinsengracht surrounded by his grandfather’s collection of old masters and Chinese porcelain. His mother died when young Abraham was barely ten, but the boy was close to his father: ‘My dearest father, the greatest treasure I possess.’
Johannes Bredius had expected his son would follow him into the trade, but when the boy proved to be a gifted pianist, he encouraged his precocious talent. Bredius was twenty-one when he realised that he did not have the makings of a concert pianist and abandoned his studies, unwilling to devote himself to something at which he could never hope to be better than good. To assuage his son’s bitter disappointment, his father paid for Bredius to spend some years in Italy where the young man was to immerse himself in art. In Florence, Abraham was befriended by Wilhelm von Bode, the director-general of the Berlin museums. It was Bode who suggested that Bredius apply himself to his own heritage. While it was possible to study Dutch painting in Paris and Berlin, it would not be possible to do so in The Hague or Amsterdam until 1907, and then largely thanks to the pioneering work of Abraham Bredius.
By the time he was twenty-five, Bredius was deputy-director of the Museum of History and Art in The Hague; by thirty-five director of the Mauritshuis. In his time there Bredius documented and re-attributed much of the collection with the help of his deputy Hofstede de Groot; more importantly he began to aggressively collect major Dutch works. During his tenure, the Mauritshuis acquired 125; in the fifty years before he was appointed, the total was just nine. He was a formidable and eccentric figure on the Dutch art scene: when Rembrandt’s Saul and David was offered for sale in 1898, the Rembrandt Association voted to buy it for the nation – but when the Dutch government balked at the price, Bredius munificently announced that he would ‘sell his horse and carriage’ to buy the painting which he donated to the Mauritshuis.
In the course of his career he would lend twenty-five paintings to the Mauritshuis, all of which he later bequeathed; he donated forty more to the Rijksmuseum. His monographs and books and his popular writings in Oude Holland argued passionately for the preservation of Dutch heritage. In print and in private he was combative and quarrelsome.
Within a year of taking up his position he had re-attributed thirty-seven of the museum’s paintings – to the anger and disgust of his predecessor – and was busy selling off ‘inferior works’. He threatened to resign with tedious, melodramatic regularity and carried on longstanding public vendettas against other critics and government ministers in the pages of the popular press.
As Han slotted the seventeenth-century tacks into the stretcher, taking care to replace the small leather squares which for more than two hundred years had protected the canvas from rust, he was considering how best to approach Bredius. Though both had been members of the Haagsche Kunstring, it is unlikely that the two men had ever met. There was much for Han to admire in Abraham Bredius. The two men were self-taught and shared an abiding passion for Dutch baroque art and a mistrust of ‘the moderns’ who, Bredius alleged, had brought about a ‘seemingly fantastical degeneration of art’. Instead Han had come to despise the man. If Han’s contempt for the art establishment had a face, it was Abraham Bredius. He had seen in the critic’s offhand denunciation of The Laughing Cavalier the overweening confidence of the charlatan. The man’s despotic pronouncements epitomised the arrogance of the coterie of self-appointed arbiters of taste and authenticity who, Han believed, had failed to appreciate his genius and had derided and dismissed his art.
But it was a shrewd choice. There were other critics, other art historians, other experts to whom he might have submitted The Supper at Emmaus, but none as eminent as Abraham Bredius. An attribution by Bredius for a problematic, atypical Vermeer would silence other critics. It was Bredius who had attributed Christ in the House of Martha and Mary to Vermeer and conjectured the existence of other religious works by the artist. Han hoped to appeal to an old man’s vanity, his yearning to crown his career with one last ‘discovery’ that would shake the world. It was a calculated risk, since Bredius’s pronouncements were as capricious as they were confident and he had been scathing in dismissing what he called ‘pseudo-Vermeers’, commenting on the gullibility of another major critic, ‘What a heresy, is it not, to describe a work of the eighteenth or nineteenth century as a Vermeer?’
Replacing the Emmaus on the easel of his Roquebrune studio, van Meegeren studied the colours, admired the radiance and luminosity of blues and yellows, the serenity of the mood. He began to piece together a crate for the canvas; he had a train to catch, an appointment to keep.
Han knew that he could not directly approach Bredius. Even if the rumours of his involvement in the Frans Hals scandal had not reached the august critic, Bredius would instinctively distrust him because of the articles in De Kemphaan in which he had mocked the art establishment. He needed a middleman, someone whose moral probity was beyond question, to bring the painting to Bredius’s attention. He had settled on an old acquaintance, Dr G.A. Boon, a respected lawyer and former member of the Dutch parliament who now lived and worked in Paris. The two men had met only briefly: once while Han and Jo had been living in The Hague, and again while Boon was holidaying in the south of France. Boon considered himself a patron of the arts; he was someone whose superficial knowledge of Dutch painting Han might exploit.
He did not contact Boon before his trip. When he arrived in Paris, he checked into a hotel and telephoned Boon to ask if they could meet urgently. Boon was surprised – the two men had only a casual acquaintance – but Han was insistent that they meet immediately, saying only that he needed Boon’s help in a matter of great importance. Boon protested that he was busy and offered to meet later in the week, but Han was adamant. Though exasperated by the man’s cloak-and-dagger tactics, his refusal to explain the nature of his business, Boon was none the less intrigued and agreed to meet Han for lunch.
‘I have been acting as an agent for some paintings for a woman I met,’ Han explained as they sat sipping cognac together in a Paris café, ‘Mavroeke . . .’
‘A pretty woman, I don’t doubt.’ Boon smiled conspiratorially.
‘I wouldn’t wish to be indiscreet,’ van Meegeren was happy to embellish his fantasy benefactor, ‘but I know that I can rely on your discretion. She and I are, as you suspect . . . intimate.’
‘You always had a fine eye for a lady . . . as I’m sure your old friend de Boer can attest.’
‘Obviously, Jo knows nothing of this,’ van Meegeren said quickly, ‘she knows only that I have received some paintings from Italy which I am to sell on commission.’ This much was true – van Meegeren had received a number of shipments of paintings from Italy, and the story he was now telling may have contained some grain of truth.
‘She is of an old Dutch family – they had a fine old house in Westland – though she moved with her father many years ago now to a small village near Cosmo in Italy. I met her while she was visiting the Riviera and we have become . . . close.’
‘Indeed?’ Boon smiled knowingly.
‘Her father was a great connoisseur and collector – in fact she tells me that when they moved he brought one hundred and sixty-two old masters with him: an exceptional collection: Holbein, El Greco, Rembrandt . . . Though the collection has been divided up now that her father is dead – some of it to Mavroeke, some to her sister who lives near Strasbourg and the remainder to her cousin who has a château in the Midi. Her problem is that she has decided she wishes to leave Italy.’
‘Ah,’ Boon frowned, ‘and the Fascists will not let her export the paintings?’
‘Precisely.’ Van Meegeren smiled, reassured that even someone on the periphery of the art world knew that it was forbidden to export works of art from Italy.
‘These paintings of hers, do you think they are valuable?’
‘While Mavroeke has, well . . . other charms, I’m afraid she knows very little about art. Of the paintings she has sent me so far, most seem to me to be of no importance. Family portraits, sentimental landscapes, you know the idea; but I have come upon one painting I think may be interesting . . .’
‘Really?’ Boon leaned towards Han, whose voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘What is it?’
‘I can’t be sure.’ Han shrugged. ‘I’m hardly an expert on the period, and the painting is not at all typical of his work – but I think it may be by Jan Vermeer.’
‘Wat leuk!’ Boon nodded appreciatively. Though he knew little of art, he had heard of Johannes Vermeer, an artist who had emerged from obscurity to take his place alongside Rembrandt and Holbein.
‘But I don’t see how I can help . . .’
‘It is a small matter. If I am to sell the painting, it must first be authenticated. Obviously, Mavroeke cannot take the painting to have it appraised.’
Han was tolerably honest in explaining why he could not represent the painting himself. His intemperate articles in De Kemphaan, he told Boon, together with his affair with the wife of a famous critic, had soured his relationship with the Dutch art world. Would Boon, he wondered aloud, consider submitting the painting for authentication by an acknowledged expert on seventeenth-century Dutch art?
‘If it is a Vermeer, then it is a work of enormous national importance and I think it should be returned to the Netherlands.’ Van Meegeren was happy to play on Boon’s patriotic spirit.
‘I shall be happy to act as a go-between if you think it will help,’ Boon said, ‘but I have no idea whom I might take it to. I know some of the Paris art dealers – Georges Wildenstein? Perhaps he might look at it for me.’
‘I think you should approach a specialist. Someone who understands Dutch baroque art. Hofstede de Groot, maybe – though perhaps the foremost authority in the field is Abraham Bredius.’
‘Of course, of course . . . So all you need is for me to contact this Bredius and ask him to examine the painting.’
‘Yes . . .’ Van Meegeren hesitated, ‘Though I am not sure Bredius will agree. I believe he has retired to Monaco now, though I know he still writes for the Burlington in London and for Oude Holland. You’re a lawyer – perhaps you could persuade him.’ This was the moment when Han had to take a
risk, to embroil Boon in his deception. ‘As I said, my name could not be mentioned for fear it might prejudice Bredius’s opinion. But there is another problem – we must also protect Mavroeke and her family. There can be no question of mentioning that the painting was smuggled out of Italy. If the Fascists were ever to find out she would be in grave trouble.’
‘Ah, yes . . . I understand, of course.’ Boon frowned. He could see the problem: there was no way that an ‘honest’ account of the painting’s provenance could be given without causing potentially serious problems for this upstanding Dutch woman, and making it highly unlikely that a national treasure would be restored to its rightful home in Holland.
‘We . . .’ Van Meegeren paused for effect, ‘we would have to give a different account of its provenance.’
Together, they concocted a new story: Boon would introduce himself to Bredius as legal counsel to a young woman from a family living in the Midi, the sole heir to the goods and chattels of her French father and Dutch mother, both deceased. Why van Meegeren asked Boon to conspire in a lie is unclear; it was a risk, and an unnecessary one, since Han could just as easily have invented the story of the family in the Midi and simply asked Boon to be discreet as to their name. The most likely explanation is that Han wanted Boon to be complicit in a lie which could destroy his reputation if it were ever discovered. This would make it impossible for Boon to later admit that van Meegeren had been involved in the sale. By dangling a story of a noble Dutch family, a secret mistress, Fascists who must be outwitted, he offered Boon precisely the sort of fantasy that would interest him, for Han knew how to appeal to the virtue in others, to use their honesty, their patriotism, their discretion against them.
‘I’ve brought the painting with me. It is upstairs in my hotel room – perhaps you’d like to take a look?’
