In the ruins of Berlin in 1945, a book with a curious inscription was discovered in the personal library of Adolf Hitler. The deluxe volume of poems, co-authored by a Nazi Dutch writer, contained illustrations from artist and fellow countryman Han van Meegeren. Within its pages, van Meegeren had seemingly penned a glowing dedication to his "beloved Führer|", which posed a considerable threat to the painter who had by then been arrested as a potential Nazi collaborator, with a possible jail sentence looming over him.
But it was to be his association with another Nazi leader - notorious art plunderer Hermann Göring - that would garner the vast majority of the public's attention. A few years earlier, the German Reichsmarschall had purchased a painting he believed to be the creation of renowned 17th-century artist Johannes Vermeer. Except he hadn't. What Göring had bought was an 'authentic' van Meegeren forgery, a wickedly gratifying con that elevated its maker's status from traitor to cunning anti-hero in an instant. It also, perhaps most significantly, left the art world reeling from the harsh reality of fakes.
THE MAKING OF A MASTER FORGER
Born in 1889 to a Catholic family in the Netherlands, Henricus van Meegeren - nicknamed Han - was never destined
