Canvas & Consequence

The Forger Who Made the Experts Look Like Idiots: Han van Meegeren's Revenge on the Art World

Episode Summary

In the 1930s and 40s, a bitter, critically dismissed Dutch painter fooled the world's foremost Vermeer scholars, sold a fake Old Master to a literal Nazi war criminal, and then — when caught — had to forge another painting in front of a courtroom just to prove he was guilty. Han van Meegeren's story isn't just about deception; it's about who gets to decide what's 'great,' and what happens when the gatekeepers are spectacularly, humiliatingly wrong.