Van Meegeren Forgery Case

In 1937, Dutch painter Han van Meegeren produced a canvas titled The Supper at Emmaus and sold it to the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam as a newly discovered work by Johannes Vermeer. The painting was celebrated by critics as a masterpiece, exhibited prominently, and became one of the most valued works in the museum's collection. Van Meegeren repeated the success with additional 'Vermeers' sold to private collectors and museums, accumulating wealth and critical acclaim. His confession came in 1945 under peculiar circumstances: arrested for collaboration with the Nazis (one fake Vermeer had been sold to Hermann Göring), van Meegeren avoided the collaboration charge by confessing to forgery—a lesser crime. The art world convulsed. The paintings had not changed—the pigment, composition, and visual properties were identical before and after the confession. What changed was the knowledge of origin, and that knowledge transformed the works from masterpieces to frauds. Goodman used this case to demonstrate that in autographic arts, the history of production is not merely of biographical