Art Identification Books

The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren

Jonathan Lopez

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

It's a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: A lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering, making a mockery of the Nazis. And it's a story that's been believed ever since. Too bad it isn't true.

Jonathan Lopez has drawn on never-before-seen documents from dozens of archives to write a revelatory new biography of the world’s most famous forger. Neither unappreciated artist nor antifascist hero, Van Meegeren emerges as an ingenious, dyed-in-the-wool crook who plied the forger's trade far longer than he ever admitted—a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush. Lopez also explores a network of illicit commerce that operated across Europe: Not only was Van Meegeren a key player in that high-stakes game in the 1920s and '30s, landing fakes with powerful dealers and famous collectors such as Andrew Mellon, but he and his associates later offered a case study in wartime opportunism as they cashed in on the Nazi occupation.

The Man Who Made Vermeers is a long-overdue unvarnishing of Van Meegeren’s legend and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world.

The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century

Edward Dolnick

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

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As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger's Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. The con man's mark was Hermann Goering, one of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a fanatic collector of art.

It was an almost perfect crime. For seven years a no-account painter named Han van Meegeren managed to pass off his paintings as those of one of the most beloved and admired artists who ever lived. But, as Edward Dolnick reveals, the reason for the forger's success was not his artistic skill. Van Meegeren was a mediocre artist. His true genius lay in psychological manipulation, and he came within inches of fooling both the Nazis and the world. Instead, he landed in an Amsterdam court on trial for his life.

ARTnews called Dolnick's previous book, the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist, "the best book ever written on art crime." In The Forger's Spell, the stage is bigger, the stakes are higher, and the villains are blacker.

Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land

Nina Burleigh

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Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

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In 2002, an ancient limestone box called the James Ossuary was trumpeted on the world's front pages as the first material evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ. Today it is exhibit number one in a forgery trial involving millions of dollars worth of high-end, Biblical era relics, some of which literally re-wrote Near Eastern history and which could lead to the incarceration of some very wealthy men and embarrass major international institutions, including the British Museum and Sotheby's.

Set in Israel, with its 30,000 archaeological digs crammed with biblical-era artifacts, and full of colorful characters—scholars, evangelicals, detectives, and millionaire collectors—Unholy Business tells the incredibly story of what the Israeli authorities have called "the fraud of the century." It takes readers into the murky world of Holy Land relic dealing, from the back alleys of Jerusalem's Old City to New York's Fifth Avenue, and reveals biblical archaeology as it is pulled apart by religious believers on one side and scientists on the other.

The Lost Painting

Jonathan Harr

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Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

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An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.

The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn’t alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.

Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others–no one knows the precise number–have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.

Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.

Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio’s strange, turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr’s account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.
". . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, A Civil Action, was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --The New York Times Book Review


"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --The Economist


From the Hardcover edition.

I Was Vermeer: The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century's Greatest Forger

Frank Wynne

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Frank Wynne’s remarkable book tells the story of Han van Meegeren, a paranoid, drug-addicted, second-rate painter whose Vermeer forgeries made him a secret superstar of the art world—and along the way, it reveals the collusion and ego that, even today, allow art forgery to thrive. During van Meegeren’s heyday as a forger of Vermeers, he earned 50 million dollars, the acclamation of the world’s press, and the satisfaction of swindling the Nazis. His canvases were so nearly authentic that they would almost certainly be prized among the catalogue of Vermeers if he had not confessed. And, no doubt, he never would have confessed at all if he hadn’t been trapped in a catch-22: he had thrived so noticably during the war that when it ended, he was quickly arrested as a Nazi collaborator. His only defense was to admit that he himself had painted the remarkable “Vermeers” that had passed through his hands—a confession the public refused to believe, until, in a huge media event, the courts staged the public painting of what would be van Meegeren’s last “Vermeer.” I Was Vermeer is an utterly gripping real-life mystery, capturing both the life of the consummate art forger, phenomenally skilled and yet necessarily unrecognized, and the equally fascinating work of the experts who identify forgeries and track down their perpetrators. Wry, amoral, irreverent, and plotted like a thriller, it is the first major book in forty years on this astonishing episode in history.

The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-- From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums

Peter Watson, Cecilia Todeschini

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Their names are splashed all over the newspapers: Marion True, Robert Hecht, Giacomo Medici. The Medici Conspiracy tells the complete history behind the headlines. The story begins with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight ancient vases are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tomb raiders who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums, including Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Now with a new chapter on the Greek scandal and fallout, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.

Scandals, Vandals, and da Vincis: A Gallery of Remarkable Art Tales

Harvey Rachlin

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Rachlin's true tales, continued... 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Having enjoyed Harvey Rachlin's other books about the stories behind historical figures and artifacts, I was anxious to get into his latest--about intrigues involving the world's art masterpieces. I was not disappointed. Rachlin is a tireless collector of historical curiosities, and he has a true storyteller's knack for ferreting out the most intriguing true tales and turning them into narratives that keep you reading. If you like art, history, mysteries, and you love a good story, check out Scandals, Vandals, and Da Vincis.

Editorial Review:

The secret histories of the world’s most famous masterpieces

Caravaggios, Rembrandts, Monets—the works of immortal artists such as these are indelibly imprinted in the public mind; they are priceless masterpieces whose beauty, artistry, and emotional impact have inspired admiration, awe, and envy through the centuries. Yet behind many of these brilliant paintings and sculptures are fascinating, unique histories. In Scandals, Vandals, and da Vincis, award-winning writer Harvey Rachlin relates in exciting detail how nearly thirty of these works came to be created and how they survived burglary, forgery, revolutions, ransoms, vandals, scandals, religious sects, and shipwrecks to eventually come to their current resting places

The Great Dali Art Fraud and Other Deceptions

Lee Catterall

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Editorial Review:

Provides a detailed account of one of the century's biggest art scandals, in which the artist Salvador Dali, his wife, and unscrupulous art dealers conspired to sell mass-produced prints as signed, limited editions. 35,000 first printing.

Fakes and Forgeries: The True Crime Stories of History's Greatest Deceptions: The Criminals, the Scams, and the Victims

Brian Innes

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Art history student review 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

The book is very well researched with lots of pictures, clear explanations and covers a lot of topics, my problem was that I was interested in painting forgeries and there are very little of this here. If your interest is forgeries and scams in general this is a good thing.

Extremely Interesting 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Overall this is an awesome book, it gives a brief history of the worlds most famous forgeries and fakes, from Art, money, and documents to religious and medical works, made by some very interesting and crafty people. I highly recommend this book, however if you are interested in one particular subject you may not like that its really brief on each subject, or if you are looking into a new line of work, this book doesn't exactly give you a "how to" on making your own money sorry, even still this book is a very interesting read.

Disappointing, unless you find a bargain price... 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Although this volume carries a 2005 publication date, while reading it I kept thinking that the text smacked of a writing style much older than that. I have a high interest in the subject matter, but to me, the prose was dull, the photos not all that helpful, and the organization of it confusing. One problem may be that it tries to cover too many topics: currency, art, documents, prehistoric objects, identity theft, con men and women, phony science and fraud to bolster beliefs. Each subject is worthy of an entire book. I also thought, when I began, that the writer seemed to be aiming at a young audience, but I changed my mind as the text wore on. Perhaps I am just not in sync with the intentions of Reader's Digest in producing this particular overview of these crimes and criminals. Often, to my mind, the author spends too many paragraphs on a dull story, and too few on a more interesting forgery or fake. There are better books out there which cover nearly the same territory. I read one only a year or so ago. If you can find a used copy of this for under ten bucks, you won't feel cheated, but this one alone will not satisfy your appetite for this topic, either.

The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia

David King

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In Stalinist Russia, it was commonplace for Soviet history to be rewritten with inconvenient participants removed--often men or women who had aided the Communist Revolution in the early days and then had somehow fallen afoul of Stalin himself. In The Commissar Vanishes, English art historian David King assembles an impressive body of photographs and artwork that shows the process whereby a hero could overnight be made into villain. "The physical eradication of Stalin's political opponents at the hands of the secret police was swiftly followed by their obliteration from all forms of pictorial existence," King rightly notes: in one noteworthy sequence reproduced on the cover, a photograph of Stalin with three revolutionary leaders is airbrushed and cropped and clipped until, one by one, those leaders disappear and only Stalin is left--conveying the message that Stalin carried the Russian Revolution by himself. Another photograph from the 1920s depicts a meeting of dozens of trade-union and Bolshevik leaders; by the late 1930s, all but a handful of them had been murdered at Stalin's orders. King's work restores some of these men and women to history and illustrates the essential inhumanity of totalitarian thought.