Han van Meegeren

Dutch painter (1889–1947) who forged Vermeers and de Hooghs, most famously selling Christ with the Adulteress to Hermann Göring during the German occupation of the Netherlands. Arrested in 1945 on the capital charge of collaboration for trading a national treasure to the enemy, he escaped execution by admitting the painting was his own forgery and proving it — painting a fresh fake, Jesus among the Doctors, under court and press supervision. His confession-by-demonstration was corroborated independently by Paul Coremans's chemical analysis, which found a modern phenol-formaldehyde ("Bakelite") binding medium in the paint — a substance that could not predate 1907, making a genuine 17th-century origin physically impossible. Convicted only of forgery, he received a one-year sentence and died of a heart attack in December 1947 before serving it. The case recurs in this vault as a paired example of two independent authentication methods — demonstration and material anachronism — proving the same fact.

References

• claim-van-meegeren-forged-a-vermeer-under-court-supervision-to-escape-a-treason-charge
• claim-coremans-bakelite-in-paint-proved-van-meegeren-vermeers-were-forgeries
• question-verify-coremans-1949-bakelite-resin-mechanism-primary
• Captures: 10-inbox/raw/2026-07-09-hop-van-meegeren-science-catches-forgers.md, 10-inbox/raw/2026-07-29-does-coremanss-1949-monograph-confirm-that-bakelitealbertol-phenol.md