The Forger'S Spell

This true story begins in preWorld War II in Holland in the art studio of an ingenious man who wanted to spend his life fooling the "egostic" art critics and in the mean time make a fortune. His name is Han van Meergaren and describes himself as an unkown mediocre artist. With this knowlege he sets out to develop a method to forge an artist who lived three centuries earlier.

His major hurtle is to create a method that can fool the art critics when his forgeries will be examined. He spends several years developing a method to make a painting look three centuies older than it really is,. He chose as his old master to forge in Johannes Vermeer who lived in the 17th century in Holland. Vermeer is best known for his painting of the Girl with the Pearl Earring; There are only 37 Vermeer's known and thus it would require a master forger to convince the art critics that a knew one had been found.

After many trials and errors, van Meergeren used a method with bakelite which was one of the earlier plastics invented in America in the 1920's. Coating the oil painting with bakelite and then baking it in the oven and then cracking the canvas at many right angles to give it the affect of an aging oil painting was the system he used. He also had to be meticulous in using the color of paint that was used in the 17th century.

When he was ready to paint his master forgery,he had to find an oil painted canvas dating back to the 17th century. Then he had to scrape the non valuable painting off of the canvas with out harming the canvas. He also preserved the wooden frame of the canvas as it also could be dated back to the 17th century by the art critics. He couldn't paint over the existing painting as a Xray could reveal the original painting.s presence.

When he had finished his forgery, he had to find the right gullible art critic, who because of his ego would leap at the possibility of finding a "new" Vermeer. He did this through an art dealer so that he, van Meergeren, would not be involved in the dealings. He found this gullible art curator in a famous Dutch musuem. The art artic quickly acclaimed that he had found a "new" Vermeer. Because the forgery was so masterful, no one disclaimed his finding.

Now van Meergeren had to find a buyer and fat, swaggering, cruel Hermann Goering was his victim. Goering was in competition with Hitler to rob and collect all of Europe's valuable art. Goering eventually paid van Meergeren 30 million in today's dollars for a total of seven Vermeer forgeries

The liberating American Army forces found most of this art collection of both Hitler's and Goering's hidden in old mines throughout Europe. Most of it has been restored to the original country from which it had been stolen.

It wasn't until Holland had been liberated from the Nazis that a Dutch policman became suspicious of the amount of wealth that van Meegeren had. After several months of questioning the truth came out mainly because van Meergeren wanted to let the art critics know how he had fooled them. He was tried and received one year in prison for forgery, but died of an heart attack before he began serving his sentence. After being convicted of heinous crimes at the Nuremberg trials, Goering poisoned himself before his hanging could be executed.

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Why do we use this expression?   What is the origin of the expresson "raining cats and dogs"? Norse mythology in which the cat symbolizes heavy rain and the dog, an attendant of Odin, the storm god, represents great blasts of wind. The choice of cats and dogs must have led to represent the conflict between the elements of the storm, and thus when it is blowing and raining we use the expression it is raining cats and dogs.