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The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren | 
 enlarge | Author: Jonathan Lopez
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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You Save: $8.84 (34%)
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Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 2166
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0151013411
Dewey Decimal Number: 759.9492
EAN: 9780151013418
ASIN: 0151013411
Publication Date: August 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
It's a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: A lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering, making a mockery of the Nazis. And it's a story that's been believed ever since. Too bad it isn't true. Jonathan Lopez has drawn on never-before-seen documents from dozens of archives to write a revelatory new biography of the world’s most famous forger. Neither unappreciated artist nor antifascist hero, Van Meegeren emerges as an ingenious, dyed-in-the-wool crook who plied the forger's trade far longer than he ever admitted—a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush. Lopez also explores a network of illicit commerce that operated across Europe: Not only was Van Meegeren a key player in that high-stakes game in the 1920s and '30s, landing fakes with powerful dealers and famous collectors such as Andrew Mellon, but he and his associates later offered a case study in wartime opportunism as they cashed in on the Nazi occupation. The Man Who Made Vermeers is a long-overdue unvarnishing of Van Meegeren’s legend and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
An Engrossing Story of Painterly Intrigue July 31, 2008
David Brody
31 out of 31 found this review helpful
Jonathan Lopez has written a stunning book that sweeps the reader up into the peculiar world of Han Van Meegeren, who spent years creating supposedly "missing" masterpieces by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. Van Meegeren managed to dupe not only wealthy financiers, such as Andrew Mellon, and important political figures like Hermann Goering, but also major museums, such as the National Gallery in Washington DC. Remarkably Mellon's faux Vermeers hung in Washington until the 1960s, when their questionable and more modern provenance came to the fore. Lopez has deftly managed to write a page turner that also provides the reader with copious amounts of original research. Especially fascinating is the portrait he gives of life in Holland under the Nazi occupation. As Lopez traces out the forger's odd and extravagant life, he also provides insightful conclusions, including the connections he makes between Van Meegeren's strange wartime fake Vermeers and the forger's sinister fascist beliefs. I loved this book and recommend it highly to anyone with an interest in art or history. It's a great read.
Elegant and Authoritative August 3, 2008
W. P. seeberg
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
"The Man Who Made Vermeers" tells the story of Dutch art forger Han van Meegeren in greater detail, with deeper insight, and providing a more compelling sense of historical context than any other treatment I have seen of this subject. The author, Jonathan Lopez, is an elegant prose stylist, and he manages to synthesize an extraordinary amount of original research into a tight and extremely entertaining narrative that combines elements of a real-life mystery story with a wide range of thought-provoking ideas.
At the heart of "The Man Who Made Vermeers" is the notion that forgeries are always in some way "about" the way the present looks at the past. In the case of Van Meegeren, who was an ardent fascist sympathizer, it seems that the forger incorporated, either consciously or unconsciously, the visual repertoire of Nazi culture into the fake Vermeers that he created from 1936 onwards, after his visit to the Berlin summer Olympics. (He had faked other Vermeers in a more 1920s-influenced style before that.) In particular Lopez's discussion of the effect of Nazi Volksgeist painting on these post-1936 "Vermeers" is a tour de force - completely riveting to read and extremely convincing. The way that he ties Van Meegeren's practice as a forger to larger questions of fascist ideology is also quite impressive.
In general, the author's understanding of the historical and culture trends of the era is very solid, as is his knowledge of Dutch art history and of the history of Holland in general (According to the information in the back of the book, he apparently also writes in Dutch, so maybe he is of partly Dutch background.)
As a work of narrative story telling, "The Man Who Vermeers" holds together beautifully. The straightforward structure, swift pacing, and reader-friendly, non-academic tone make for a pleasurable experience from beginning to end. Personally, I found the descriptions of life in Nazi-occupied Holland particularly gripping and really well done. This is an excellent book, highly recommended for readers with an interest in art, criminal enterprises, or World War II history. It is likely to be the definitive book on the subject for many years to come.
A Scholarly Book That's Fun to Read September 5, 2008
E. C. Mansfield (Sewanee, TN USA)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
There are a lot of fun books out there that use artworks as a sort of McGuffin for an elaborate or at least distracting plot. Books like The DaVinci Code or The Girl with the Pearl Earring, for instance, give the impression of being based on art historical research, but they take gross liberties with the historical record (or lack thereof). In a way, this ultimately devalues the artworks such books use as plot devices because readers come to see the art as mere accessories to a fantastical tale.
In The Man Who Made Vermeers, the artworks (or, rather, "artworks") remain at the center of a fascinating history. As objects of aesthetic pleasure, economic gain, or social status, the paintings at the heart of Lopez's story exert exactly the sort of power we have come to expect from art. Their status as fakes only complicates our understanding of the real value of art in society.
The Man Who Made Vermeers proves that it is possible to combine lively prose, an intriguing plot AND original research to create a wonderfully engaging yet scholarly narrative. Because the book's prose is so effortless, the painstaking archival research that the author must have undertaken is not as evident as it might be if the book were written in a more conventionally academic style.
Highly recommended!
Surprisingly Strong August 10, 2008
Margaret Williams
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
As an art historian, I approached this book with considerable skepticism because the story of Han van Meegeren has been told so many times and, in general, so badly (at least outside the Dutch academic literature), that yet another volume on the subject seemed like it would probably be a waste of time. "The Man Who Made Vermeers," however, is a very different kind of book than its too many English-language predecessors. In its level of detailed research on Van Meegeren, this book is comparable only to Marijke van den Brandhof's out of print "Een vroege Vermeer uit 1937," which I highly recommend to readers of Dutch. As Lopez acknowledges, had Van den Brandhof lived, she might have gone on to pursue many of the lines of inquiry explored in "The Man Who Made Vermeers." In any case, instead of indulging in the usual anti-intellecual sneering that the Van Meegeren story tends to inspire in people who write for a popular audience, Lopez successfully adopts an approach that I could easily compare to Simon Schama's best work, where story-telling, history, and a profound engagement with the world of ideas make for an exciting narrative that is nonetheless well grounded in real scholarship. "The Man Who Made Vermeers" contains, for instance, a discussion of the history of Vermeer attribution and misattribution that is as good as anything in the academic literature but that is completely comprehensible to someone with no previous background in art. The only objection that I might raise to the book as a whole would be that Lopez sometimes concedes a little too much to the lay reader. In his efforts to appeal to a broad audience, he shies away from interrogations of his methodological framework. Quibbles aside, much to my surprise, this is a very strong book.
A really great read August 5, 2008
rayburn_reader
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
"The Man Who Made Vermeers" is an amazing piece of work. Stunning. Truly impressive. Fun to read, easy to follow, hugely informative. It covers so much ground with so much ease that it is breathtaking. I'm mostly a reader of fiction, but I bought this book because Amazon recommended it with Joseph O'Neill's "Netherland." What the two books have in common, aside from a slight Dutch connection, is that they are beautifully written works by people who really know how to tell a story. I was so engrossed by this book that I was sorry when it was over. Very well done indeed.
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