Canvas & Consequence

The Forger Who Made the Nazis Look Like Idiots (And Got Away With It)

Episode Summary

Han van Meegeren sold a fake Vermeer to Hermann Göring during World War II — and when the Dutch government arrested him for Nazi collaboration after the war, his only defense was to confess to one of the greatest art frauds in history. It's a story about ego, expertise, revenge, and the uncomfortable question of whether a painting's value lives in the object itself or in the story we desperately need to believe about it.