In May 1945, the Allied forces questioned bankers and art dealer Alois Miedl regarding the newly discovered Vermeer. Based on Miedl's confession, the painting was traced back to Meegeren. On 29 May 1945, he was arrested and charged with fraud and aiding and abetting the enemy. He was remanded to Weteringschans prison. As an alleged Nazi collaborator and plunderer of Dutch cultural property, van Meegeren was threatened by the authorities with extensive prison time. Faced with these bleak choices, and after spending three days in jail, he confessed to forging paintings attributed to Vermeer and
In May 1945, the Allied forces questioned bankers and art dealer Alois Miedl regarding the newly discovered Vermeer. Based on Miedl's confession, the painting was traced back to Meegeren. On 29 May 1945, he was arrested and charged with fraud and aiding and abetting the enemy. He was remanded to Weteringschans prison. As an alleged Nazi collaborator and plunderer of Dutch cultural property, van Meegeren was threatened by the authorities with extensive prison time. Faced with these bleak choices, and after spending three days in jail, he confessed to forging paintings attributed to Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch. He exclaimed, The painting in Goering's hands is not, as you assume, a Vermeer of Delft, but a Van Meegeren! I painted the picture! It took some time to verify this and for several months he was detained in the Headquarters of the Military Command at Herengracht 468 in Amsterdam. Between July and about November/December 1945, and in the presence of reporters and court-appointed witnesses, he painted his last forgery, of Jesus among the Doctors, also called Young Christ in the Temple in the style of Vermeer. After the trial painting was finished, he was transferred to the fortress prison Blauwkapel. Van Meegeren was released from prison in January or February 1946. At the end of May 1945, when the employees of the Bureau for Combating Asset Escape in the accounts of Goudstikker, operated until 1944 by the banker and art dealer Alois Miedl, read that Han van Meegeren had a Vermeer Christ and the Alois Miedl had sold adulterer to Hermann Göring and who had (unfounded) suspicion that he had been a member of the National Socialist Nationaal-Socialist Movement, he was in custody from May 29, 1945 until autumn 1945 for fraud and favouring enemy enemies. In view of the impending imprisonment as a collaborator and seller of national heritage in the Netherlands, Han van Meegeren made a confession after three days in prison that he had forged this and other Vermeer. He
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Photo credit: © BNA Photographic / Alamy / Afripics
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