FAKE OR FORTUNE SE1EO4 VAN MEEGEREN

519 minute the art world glamour wealth intrigue 95 selling at 95 million dollars beneath the surface there's a darker place the world of high stakes and Gamble's International art dealer Philip mold knows the risks he hunts down sleepers paintings that hides secrets in the past we looked at pictures now almost you can look through them paint almost acts like blood at a crime scene [Music] I'm Fiona Bruce and I've over 20 years experience as a journalist every picture tells its own story and it's up to us to try and uncover it we're teaming up to investigate human dramas and mysterious tales locked in paint it's a world of great beauty and ugly deceptions how many fakes do you think are out there some law enforcement agencies suggest 40 or 50 percent in the art market could be crazy hard in this episode we go on the trail of a painting which hides the story of one of the greatest scandals the art world has ever seen these like you're dirty to the secret aren't they could it be by the most daring forger of modern times we're not just dealing with an artistic mind were actually dealing with a sophisticated criminal mind controversially it's part of the collection at one of our leading art establishment after 50 years they're about to find out whether they're painting is genuine or fake [Music] if you peak as an art dealer Philip mold operates in a world where paintings exchange hands for millions of pounds put it down but he has to be constantly on his guard fakes are one of the biggest problems in the art world we're on our way to see a painting which has been foxing art specialists the picture take you to see now has caused real controversy opinion is divided amongst experts as to whether it's genuine or fake now there's still a lot of fakes out there even though there are I mean I've been taken in others have been taken in but there was one faker at the 20th century who left all the other faker standing his name was Han Van Meegeren and believe it or not he conned the art world out of about 65 million pounds in modern money Wow so a very successful faker and it's possible the picture we're gonna see now is by him in the 1940s Van Meegeren caused a scandal when it was discovered he'd swindled the art world with his forgeries of Dutch old masters among them a series of paintings faking the work of Johann Vermeer when he was caught it emerged that the world's most prestigious art galleries and respected experts had been duped by fan migrants fakes during his trial in 1947 fan megwin confessed to fortune seven old masters but he didn't own up to all his work 21 of his fakes have now been identified and I suspect there are more lurking out there so you think van Negron is still causing trouble after all these years yes and in one of the last places you'd expect [Music] we're heading to the Courtauld Institute in London a center of excellence for the study of art here the next generation of art world experts are trained but hanging inside this highly respected establishment is a picture causing confusion and controversy recent press reports have raised all good questions about the attribution of this work of art which has hung the choral since 1960 leading experts can't agree when it was painted and by whom dr. Aviva burns doc is their head of conservation and teaches the scientific study of paintings she's keen for us to help solve the mysteries surrounding the picture which is causing such disagreement amongst the art establishment so here it is this is a painting that is riddled with mystery and may represents I think the procuress it's called doesn't it yes there's a madam on the right handing over one of her girls to a rather the Silvius looking client in the middle right she no matter what she batard just etad so here's the procuress is that a woman this is woman yes it's a woman yeah and she's pointing to her hand where she wants money oh I see now the question is is this a genuine 17th century canvas a work done in the studio of an artist called Dirk from the Bureau if it is then it's an interesting picture in itself oh and this is where it gets exciting could this be a work by the most notorious fakir of the 20th century and by maker what do you make of it well it was given to the court held in 1960 and it's hung here on the wall for the last 18 years as far as I know and experts really are undecided on the matter it's gone back and forward between being a fake by Van Meegeren or a genuine 17th century painting so people keep changing their mind about it yes the experts are divided everyone has a different view I love the fact that it's here in the heart or the Institute of excellence about art history and art conservation you've been walking backwards and forwards past it all these years and we still don't know do you think we can get to the bottom of it well I think that what makes this project so exciting is that finally we will be able to get to the bottom of this and we will be able to find out together whether this is a fake we're genuine 17th century painting I presume if it is a 300 year old painting that will make it much more valuable than if it's a hand then neighbouring done you know a few decades ago I'll find off the reverse actually if it is by that matron he's got a sort of cult following there are people that they would want to buy it just any 17th century artist copying the work of a great painter of the period does not necessarily mean people pay money but a name a big name a dark name absolutely what do you prefer he would you prefer it to be both at megget I find that really hard here in the court old of all places he's certainly in the famous forger and I think to have a painting by a famous forger such as form a form would be more exciting in some ways as long as it's only one of them here at the Courtauld I think you'll enjoy having why wouldn't you I just want if I'm ever gonna understand your world [Music] Phillips head of research dr. bender Grosvenor has years of experience uncovering secrets behind paintings he's been tracing the provenance of the procuress who owned the painting and when how did the procuress end up with a court hold well it was given to them in 1960 by this man called Jeffrey Webb now Jeffrey Webb had a really important role at the end of World War two it was his job to track down all the paintings that the Nazis had stolen particularly from Holland and that's how he played a part in the arrest of him and matron in 1945 and how did Van Meegeren get caught he made one catastrophic mistake he allowed one of his fake veneers to end up in the hands of Hermann Goering Hitler's right-hand man and the Nazis most prolific thief not sort of major describes the ideal plant no not so we want to corner no and the situation got even worse for Van vagrant when the picture was found in Goering private art collection here it is with the American soldiers who discovered it they were able to trace the paper trail all the way back to Van Negron himself and as a result he was arrested in 1945 not for sending Goering a fake painting that we're selling him what they thought was real for me a piece of priceless Dutch national heritage so this laid himself open to be charged with the repugnant crime of being a collaborator yes it was a very very stiff jail sentence that he faced and possibly worst of all he faced a charge of treason which of course the sentence was death now the only way that van migrant could get off these charges and get himself out of the hole he dug himself into was by admitting that he hadn't sold Goering a real Vermeer mmm it sold in one of his fix incredible story that's an amazing trial I mean it was it was extraordinary and he later confessed to producing seven fake old masters don't need to sell humiliating for the experts and then what about the quarters painting what about the procuress did he confess to that one crucially the quarters picture was not a monster I guess what we need to do now is find out more about a van migrant and to do that we need to go to Holland I want to get really close to have urn made room or two I want to get so close that I can see the the signature brushstrokes of the great faker at work [Music] our first stop amsterdam scene of the crime Van Meegeren managed to convince the world's most respected art galleries that his works were genuine among them Holland's famous Rijksmuseum it's home to the world's greatest collection of paintings from the Golden Age of Dutch art including works by the artist Van Meegeren dared to forge the 17th century master Johann Vermeer his paintings are among the most iconic and the most valuable in the world now this is the artist who inspired fan migrant and his ultimate crime Johannes Vermeer what do you think of it beautiful isn't it it's very very gentle that's right intimate that's stunning it is so powerful it's so introspective it's also just what a kind of humble subject humble setting he's so domestic and he said ordinary and I said absolutely exquisite as well hmm yeah you don't have to be able to appreciate art definitely anything about a lot and to know that that is fantastic I agree with you I mean the audacity of a migrant thinking that he could he could take on this painter now just look at this I mean frankly he could not have chosen higher goal posts I mean this is a variant of that picture so what an maker has done is he's taken half of the picture and created a new composition I can't believe that Van Meegeren thought you'd get away with it you know imitating Vermeer in the heart of the land whether Mir is most known about and most appreciated but he did did you see that's where he's so damn clever people he wanted more veneers more works by the great artist the sort of Shakespeare as it were in paint of his time I mean they're only 35 works known at the period but the other thing was made we have the skills of a magician he had this whole panoply of tricks I felt there's some examples here of what he could do the Rijksmuseum has its own chapter in this story of shame conservator Michel van de la takes us deep into the museum vaults where hidden away from view is a collection of paintings by Van Meegeren himself my hope is that these forgeries might help us solve the mystery of the court olds painting on this rack is a painting which for a long time used to be a big embarrassment for the Rijksmuseum like an open wound at painting painted by Homme formation and bolts in 1943 as a genuine from mere what did they pay for it they pay for it 1 million hundred sixty eight thousand Dutch guilders which would be today's something like twelve million pound hard to believe that such an ugly painting Thanks that must have been a record at the time the gallery paid in as much as that for anything else it was like a record amount of money at the moment that's causing it the holes are made in the court case of fur maker who study and see if this in beef is a forgery or an original painting there seems to be done with anger and was a useless painting of no value but it looks a bit rubbish a bit rough yes but having this that there's on the left here with art historians of the time wondered aren't there more paintings by fermier there must be a religious work and that's what home for maker anticipated on by making these paintings say he was trying to produce a sort of lost but primitive early work right there's no one had anything to compare it with his right so he could just dream up in a sense a whole new type of yeah me yeah she looks familiar yeah I was gonna say this painting was you as a piece of evidence in the court case really I have to say it's more convincing than the other would that have taken you good why put aside national pride okay well well if you do the forties and you'd seen that well in the forties I might well have actually abducted many people live many people believe this was from mere and the richest people in the world thought it became easier to understand how Van Meegeren duped the world's experts when Michelle showed us the tricks of his trade so these are all by Van Meegeren all by Omega and and we can see on the on the back that he used an old painting and all 70 century painting was patches and everything the old goat and would he put these cracks in and this damage to the canvas yeah he liked those things with ink because he knew that no painting would survive the sanctuary without cracks it's a bit like the cracking on someone's face I mean it's an indication of age sometimes it's the only evidence that one has to the picture is old yeah here we can see that he also over cleaned his own works that's astonishing is it say what he did is he knackered his own pictures except in order to give them the appearance of a picture that has come down through the ages and has been over cleaned or something yeah missed us I mean definite pretty realistic isn't it I mean to have this evidence of the process this assumption in sight isn't it yeah I mean I mean to think we're not just dealing with an artistic mite were actually dealing with a sophisticated criminal mind don't you think hmm I think looking at these these are like your dirty little secrets ugly you have a past they don't you because you worked at the court oh well it's a picture is that where we're looking into what's your view it's hard to say because I haven't studied at painting close up but I think it's it's older than formation style so you do think it's a 17th century painting no I don't think so it's only on the basis of technical analysis yes we've all found out but your hunch is that it's not a mermaid okay yeah you want to you want to know that hey I wanna know this is important [Music] I'm keen to learn more about the man who wreaked havoc in the art world I've managed to track down the last person alive who knew Van Meegeren his nephew pimp Ullman town thank you tell me about this photograph this photo is the norm in niya from 1970 after okay this is my home and they've been tick did you ever see your uncle paid yeah he kept my home since Hilda that men ever portrait that was in his L of the Teton at Naha yeah not after in treatment at $50 per period is it what do you remember of the trial and the whole scandal of it it was uncertain the height from the media on the hailer vehicle traumas that I'm stood up to whom have to interview were impaired as the process about the villas end when the trust of the coaster for forcing the oil it's a part of on their own without Hannah to look to Haley we will take the ethic of the cop rosette and I was in our heart that had left head of 16 year my main dot not not over may heaven I'm happy for the Deacons but they even knew damn sister here and I was indoors and may have you hear them interview over them what do you think he would think now if he knew that even today his paintings are still causing arguments and disagreements what would he think of all that as our not states from Haneda a note of doom from that either the the farm that Constance Twitty see in the really hateful left no sorry no no states not committed benefit of attacked I have a picture here where your uncle still causing trouble uh-huh do you think your uncle painted this saw me of a need for bastard nothing tank Tata no failure so the rayon over in the wheel sin he took that's from the egg hunt of conscious and and he knew I'd say the word is it's all good so you mean you think there are paintings still out there in Holland around the world that are undiscovered forgeries by your uncle he cometh [ __ ] very my soulmate Zico need some balance dig it up so your uncle will not have the last laughing oh yeah absolute absolute as I'm sure before I came here I assumed that that Meghan was a kind of stain on the national honour of Holland but actually have you met them Negron's nephew I can see that not only is he really rather proud of him but it's also a bit more complex than that because he's not the only one to be prouder than maker and they still here in Holland feel that a cave is a forger he was it was a really good forger and their approach that I've been doing some digging and I've been told that the rice museum conservation lab holds some vital evidence this state-of-the-art facility is devoted to the scientific analysis and conservation of some of the world's most treasured works of art in a core of the studio is a cupboard full of the most fascinating collection of artefacts all seized from fair migrant studio at the time of his arrest in 1945 although this evidence was examined during Van Reagan's trial it has never undergone the scrutiny of modern forensic tests well look this one says has Van Meegeren October 1945 so this is a kind of tag that was using the truck yeah this is one of his props wasn't it in his painting yeah I mean this that's a 17th century piece of glass you know he went to infinite pains that's mine to me now this is a dream look at this these are all samples of the pigments that were discovered in his studio so these are the the pigments used in his paintings in his face these are the these are the actual ingredients for his pictures cinnabar lapis lazuli what a gift a I mean I can't think of another comparison of an artist being able to be discovered or rediscovered so precisely in this way analyzed these were be able to find out exactly what it was in his pictures and will be able to move forward before we returned home I was shown one last piece of evidence that could help us date the court holes painting several versions of the procuress unknown to exist this is quite common for 17th century works of art as paintings were often replicated or copied by apprentices who were learning their masters craft one of these versions has hung in the Rijksmuseum since 1898 if Van Meegeren did Forge the court Elle's painting he would have made his copy from this work which is known to being painted nearly 400 years ago by an apprentice of the old master Doug van Beveren I asked Michelle to take paint samples from this 17th century work to compare them to the Court holds procuress the flecks of painters so tiny it'll cause minimal damage I also convinced him to make another whole little bit a microscopic one in their mutilated van made with fake wood the paint from the Court holds picture match up to the genuine work or the 20th century forgery this is getting really exciting I mean this is real progress and we've got the Rijksmuseum the great institution to allow us to remove this happening now to flecks of paint to bits of paint from two of their works of art I mean it's quite a big ask I mean if we are actually taking something off their paintings and taking it over the channel painting this acts like blood at a crime scene I mean as a result of analysing the material we can establish things that were never formally establish a ball we can work out for example whether the painting could have been done at that date if the pigments not around then it can't be we can establish sometimes what the actual artist used whether the likelihood is that it was that heartis because of what they use all sorts of questions that the scientists that the microscope that the scalpel can now answer [Music] say you're preparing here the samples of the procuress from the race museum and also fan Megan that's right I'm doing the final polish and then the ready to go to the court of a security my hope is that these samples hold the answer to whether the Court holds painting is genuine or fake how exciting thank you very much [Music] we've left Amsterdam confident in the knowledge that we've gathered enough evidence to solve the mystery of the court holes painting while we've been away bender has been studying documents relating to van migrants interrogation and trial I've got here a copy of an migrant statement he made when he was arrested in 1945 it is if you like is his confession where he admits to everything and it contains a reference to the court all's procuress what you are baiting indeed good news but don't get too excited because I've had the document translated and he says not that he painted a procuress but that his former wife bought it in 1938 and he even says here for about six hundred francs in an antique shop in Nice well well they were your oh we I mean that's it he didn't fake this painting his wife bought him and there is in black more you see I just don't believe it I just don't believe it this man was a liar he lied in paint he was a fortune he twisted the truth as well I think this picture is by their maker I could put my neck on it but he confessed I know a second because he confessed to painting seven other fakes or seven fakes in court why would he not confessor this one because it makes sense we know he didn't confess to everything I'll tell you why I think it's a been made but have a look at this this is one of Vermeer's most famous pictures the concert and probably recognize it you probably haven't looked that carefully at the background we may have done who knows perhaps look what can you see the procuress sour picture isn't it more it's the image take a look at the next picture again a really famous work by Vermeer young woman are the Virgin's but have a look at the painting in the background it's the procuress again yeah now we know that the mirror had a version of this picture in his studio we know that Van Negron was obsessed by the mayor my theory is and it's a circumstantial theory but I think it's a strong work I think that he was producing a prop to use in his face what props like he had in the cupboard Jack it was we saw yes I mean we know that van maker had a whole range of props perhaps the most famous was this little white jug that he used repeatedly in his fake fur mears in fact this is fascinating footage from the auction of fan maker and studio effects after the whole scan was exposed and defecated that fan vagrant was wildly popular because he was a man who ripped off dairy and as you can see from the audience there was great demand to have our little piece for fan Negron a crazy well is an interesting theory and it's quite a seductive theory but that's all it is just a theory it's just your hunch we've got these samples I'm going to go to the court hold let's see what they tell us the more I learn about how ambitious Van Negron was in plotting his fakes the more I wonder to what extent forges are getting away with it today the thing is there have been forges since time immemorial and for sure there will be forges and fakers out there now who are conning people conning experts who knows [Music] to find out more eye contact Scotland Yard I'm instructed to travel to a secret store where the spoils of art crime are held [Music] head of the art and antiques squad Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley agrees to show me the extent of the problem today it's like Fort Knox in here now even the location of this place is secret so why all the secrecy of that is building well no need we have a fake supporters here but we've also got a lot of stolen artworks and red card works and antiquities recovered from them over the world that are very going so you don't want to know where we are not really in here Wow okay let's not so these are all fakes and what happens these pages how have you come by the way well they've all been seized in the course of our investigations by the art antiques unit so this is what Banksy that's amazing that's a limited edition print by Banksy that's something that we're having a great deal of problems with in the moment very easy to produce and also yeah it was just a stencil isn't it well that is this just a stencil with a full signature replied and but they sell for quite on a considerable amount of money well the limited edition print line that's probably 1500 2000 pounds at least and then a smaller something like a stencil painting there that that can run into tens of thousands of pounds now living in these this is what a fake Lowry in judgment there are old masters here as such is that because the old masters are much harder today we find him increasingly is the artists are preferring to go from more modern contemporary artworks the checks that are done on them are not so exacting us as she would if for example you were looking to buy a Vermeer you would conduct every every check how many fakes and forgeries are out there any other market amount some law enforcement agencies suggest 40 or 50 percent in the art market could be crazy cough maybe what does that say about the state of the art market or anyone he wants to go out and buy painting if maybe half of them could be faked that's astonishing well there are without any doubt at all thousands of thanks out there there are being produced on a daily basis by a number of artists and people need to consider that when they're when they're making purchases and to act more careful the thing that strikes me is that if after half the paintings are there in the art market generally could be fake there must be little time bombs planted in galleries and museums around the world which in five 20 100 years time people come to realize or not genuine works of art but they are fakes and therefore valueless and I'd quite like to learn a bit more about the people who are preventing these little time bombs these forges new are they while Fiona hunts down today's forgers I'm trying to nail one from the past I'm at the Courtauld with the paint samples from the Rijksmuseum and the box of pigments that van Negron used eager to start scrutinizing the evidence Aviva Bern stock expert in the scientific study of paintings has agreed to help me forgers are often caught by their careless use of what materials so in order to make sure his fakes weren't spotted by scientific tests van Negron used the techniques of a 17th century painter by comparing the paint samples from the Wrights museum with the Cortese painting we should be able to identify how the procuress was painted and with what what can we deduce from what you're looking at now well what I'm looking at under the microscope and what I've captured on the screen here our samples from the three different paintings that you've brought samples from one is the Rijksmuseum 17th century procuress the second is the Rijksmuseum van matron and here's a sample from the court old picture so we've got all three lined up now we're in a pretty strong position to then make some comparisons yes we have the 17th century painting which has a classical structure sort of technique you would expect from a 17th century painter in Holland exactly right the most important thing to look at is the first two layers the first reddish paint layer that was applied to smooth the canvas to fill up the canvas weaves and then a second gray layer mixture of black and white mixed together to create the smooth painting gray surface that was very popular in the 17th century now let's have a look at the Van Meegeren from the Rijksmuseum it's a similar technique closely similar technique the only difference really is the thickness of the layers fascinating ok so we've got a 17th century version we have got the van migrant version shanks similar technique now let's compare it with a quarter version this is our picture from the court old which you can see has a very similar structure at the red layer followed by the gray layer yeah so what we know about Van Meegeren is that he ached as far as possible the exact techniques in the 17th century so if this is van vagrant this is exactly what you'd expect it rules him in definitely rules in it but the structure is one thing what about the materials what you can see you really is that the materials have been used are all consistent with 17th century paintings and we know that bond maker was very meticulous about choosing 17th century materials or materials that could have been used then but what's really striking is that the box of pigments that you gave me from the Rijksmuseum are closely similar in color and tonality to some of these pigments that we're seeing in the court old picture you can tell it already Kelly they just seemed compellingly similar I can only tell so much from microscopy what I need to do is more sophisticated analytical techniques I feel making progress but it's still frustrating we know that the progress was painted in a 17th century technique using 17th century pigments and we know that fan-made when painted in a 17th century technique and used those pigments I mean we actually have them here in this box the actual pigments that he applied to his paintings so that rules him in but equally it could be a 17th century picture but there's one sample in here that's not a 17th century pigment and it's marked artificial resin now I have a hunch what this might be but if we can analyze it and find out for certain we can move forward the cunning tricks of the forgers hand are intriguing enough but I'm eager to get inside the forgers mind John Myatt served four months in prison in 1998 for painting and selling hundreds of fakes today he legally produces copies by declaring that he is the real artist but back then he wasn't so upfront and Scotland Yard said he'd committed the biggest art fraud of the 20th century that's some money down there what have we got across there at the end there we've got a couple of more-- Matisse better Giacometti and now this is another money just take me back to the beginning then John cuz you were what an art teacher originally I was an artist and later on about ten years after that then when I was looking after two youngsters your two children what your children and I was looking after them by myself I had to stop my teaching job because I had to be with them so I put an advert in private I genuine fakes from two hundred and fifty pounds so you were all free to do fakes of paintings but being completely upfront photos they were they were affecting these ones that you don't how did that change one of the customers just took one of my paintings into one of the auction houses and they said oh we will put a reserve on that of 25,000 pounds now he just paint be 250 quid for it and he called me up when he said you can either keep the 250 or I'll give you twelve and a half thousand pounds what's it going to be and I just said yes yes yes yes let's do it and then from that moment on you churning and churning actively Rohde away yes I probably turned about 200 fakes over over a six seven year period you know your committee and the scale did that not trouble you know I remember thinking me well you know no one's been bashed over the head here everybody is still alive at the end of it it's only painting how people were losing a lot of money well I mean did you well paintings they bought that then turned out to be face absolutely I mean it's not a victimless crime did you were you troubled by that no you were no not until afterwards not until about halfway through I started feeling wrong about who I wasn't what I was doing but I didn't get to that place soon enough I guess the money was too tempting yo how many of your fakes asked him out there now 120 120 now why don't you go out and I did I know I had that question before when I was it's an obvious questions hmm I mean you put some fakes out there in the market only you really can identify them why don't you I mean if you're all really fence and that's what you do is you name supposing you've paid thirty thousand pounds and I come along and say I did that well you know you just lost a whole massive money dude great what you did creating yes yes yes yes oh yes you choose to fake the modernity of painting because it was easy to recreate these what's the hardest thing in your view about creating a forgery like them they ended the major problem is using the right materials and materials that will withstand scientific analysis and that was his major achievement do you think you could do it I recreate 17th century of Vermeer yes I do very confident I'm very confident well you know I'm in my comfort zone well John seems very confident scarily confident that he can reproduce a 17th century masterpiece using Van Negron's techniques we shall see I mean the interesting thing is we don't know exactly the precise details of what Van Meegeren did and this is one way hopefully we're going to find out Van Meegeren managed to fool the experts by his painstaking use of seventeenth-century materials so I need to buy the authentic ingredients for John to paint our fake I'm heading to one of the last surviving traditional pigment shops to meet dr. David Kranz ouack an expert in painting techniques we've set ourselves rather ambitious task of trying to recreate Vermeer's a great masterpiece the girl with the Pearl Earring about that glorious blue in the scarf then how do we recreate it well that's just about one of the most precious of all the colors that's lapis lazuli which we have up here on the shelf it's made from the rock but this is a piece of lapis it's just blue isn't it absolutely once the pigment is drawn out of the the rock washed and purified then wait for wait as the same price as gold really and what about her gorgeous red lips then they would have been painted with vermilion and it's made by mixing together mercury and sulfur and if it's got mercury in it presumably pretty dangerous stuff there they did you have to be very careful with it to you what about the yellow in her scarf and in her clothing little yellow this one here mixed with yellow ochre it gives this very very beautiful bright yellow color which you would have used here in the in the material down below we have all permant it's made from arsenic this is a sample of it so I wouldn't touch it this is this is what I'll snake looks that is what a snake looks like amazing that something so beautiful could be saved a flea mmm the white now that's a very ancient color there were gifts firstly stale you and it had to be staying with a new style everybody the stale of the better have a sheet of lead very the whole thing into a dung heap in dung absolutely yes better we who affected him and one of the most toxic substance is Ned yeah comes this pristine white [Music] in the 17th century these vivid powders would have been transformed into paint by mixing them with oil what we're looking for is in the end the final results would be like butter at room temperature should be soft shiny glistening but not running at all can have a go yeah go ahead feels lovely when you that van matron followed the same traditional methods to make his paint but he added a special ingredient to the mix he confessed to adding to his resume something he called a lot official resin basic tests undertaken during van Megan's trial revealed what this resin was but methods of identifying chemicals have moved on considerably in the last 60 years just to be sure and with all the advances of modern science we reanalyzed the sample now do you remember those test tubes that we picked up in Amsterdam there's things that have been taken from they're made from studio well one of them if you recall had written on it artificial resin the one with the brown stuff in it absolutely we kind of analyzed and I got the results Bendel yes the analysis confirms that van Negron used to mix his paints with a special ingredient called phenol formaldehyde phenol formaldehyde it's better known as bacon diced bacon Eisen so that make would use bakelite yes so the kind of stuff that was used I don't know if all radios and for hair yes that kind of thing yes you could take your pick really we've got some particularly hideous looking examples from the 1940s here it was a type of resin that you could pour into a mold for any shape that you like and when it's set it was extremely hard and it was that hardness that appealed to Vern may groom traditional oil paint takes hundreds of years to dry sometimes and in his day in a van vagrants day they used a test to establish whether the painting was completely hard whether the paint had gone completely solid and they do something like acetone which I've got here what like nail varnish remember exactly and they used that fear that painting was genuinely old or or a modern faith a certain nation you're not seriously gonna put nail varnish remover on that painting I am and it was very simple if the paint is old I believe this to be old at least 300 years old nothing will come off onto the swab if it's modern there'll be pigment on this piece of cotton wool have a look I was lucky it will it's clean so van maker will put bakelite in his paintings in so that when someone put a swab over it it wouldn't come off it would be that hard but even something like this will remove it exactly bakelite was his unique fingerprint so that means then that the Courtauld procuress if it's by Van Meegeren will have bacon in it while Philip heads off to test the court old painting for bakelite I have to try and find some to paint our fake with but it turns out the chemical it's made from phenol formaldehyde is pretty hazardous stuff certainly not something that should be handled in an artist studio like Van Meegeren did but John has agreed to follow van Mei grens methods as closely as possible and so we have to take precautions it means he's going to have to paint our fake in a rather unconventional setting the chemistry lab of Imperial College London head of department Tom Welton is on hand to ensure our safety I'm ready so what are we dealing with here so we're gonna mix some Fino with some formaldehyde to make the bakelite now what is it about these either separately or together that makes them so dangerous you have to get kitted up on it well they're not so ridiculously dangerous to us you know we're used to handling lots of them far more toxic things than this but both of these are cancer-causing agents they're both toxic and they're both corrosive so cancer is of course the thing that everybody gets really scared about but actually of these the thing that I would be most worried about immediately is the corrosive nature if you get these on your skin it's likely to cause blistering and hurt and it gets worse because the formaldehyde is volatile and we're gonna heat it out which means that we're gaseous formaldehyde and so we need to protect ourselves from that as well we're evening now so I'm breathing in yeah and so that's why we're going to do it in a fume hood which will take the air will blow over it'll take all the fumes away and so you can't expose yourself with them and so actually you'll be alright and so can I just saw see because our our fake of an egg renews the is without any of these precautions yeah and how dangerous would happen um well given that he did it over years and years and years it's almost certain it will have affected his health in some kind of way probably Badlands ulceration at the skin we certainly died quite young you guys 50 you'll be alright let's sort you out [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] well shall we start our journey into the unknown that's the very good way of putting it Tate phenol-formaldehyde canvas van Magra never revealed precisely how he mixed phenol-formaldehyde with traditional pigments but in later years his son recalls seeing him loading his brush with paint and then dipping it into the toxic solution how does it feel it feels as though it leaves the brush very quickly but you can't push it around the car why is it exactly you can't cover up the canvas so what are you trying to do first just to paint in the big blocks of color exactly that what I'm doing is what all 17th century painters will do is the block the painting to actually get rid of this white and establish the basic shape to the shape of the face thing yellow ocher down here the blue here and again the slightly if you like to come so this is however Mia would have done it and how Van Meegeren yes you see I can it's coming isn't it from an escape that's it is there something quite personal about your homework your arm take miss John yeah so this is ultramarine blue extracted from the lapis lazuli worth its weight in gold that's waiting Carol have you used it before it's very hard to get hold of these days I mean when you think about the work that you did when you were faking paintings and all those years ago and what you're doing there no I took I mean I took absolutely no I paid no regard to to the authenticity of materials or of canvases or anything no I mean I painted with hustled emulsion paint KY jelly just and yet they were sort integrated this is interesting because we're actually using 17th century pigments and the whole thing is as authentic as we can do it under these strange circumstances what's happening here you see on this plane to climbing over look at it looks all sort of cloudy and as if it's coagulant if there was something happening it's kind of just doing strange things so you think that's the phenol-formaldehyde this messy look so calm boys and girls kind of just something it's a reaction to be fair to John it took Van Meegeren four years of experiments to perfect his techniques he never wrote down the exact proportions of his paint and phenol-formaldehyde mix the thing is when I was standing next to John I thought why not gonna do that's what's that a painter on they were a bit rubbish but coming back here looks brilliant actually I can completely see what he's doing this Josh with a face is taking shape and I think you might know what he's doing the only thing is this phenol-formaldehyde it is kind of messing things up a bit you know no one has done this since my matron no one has tried this this is a first so will it work genuinely have no idea at the Courtauld Institute analytical chemist classroom Vandenberg has flown from Amsterdam to take samples from the procuress to test for phenol formaldehyde so we know that Van Meegeren used phenol formaldehyde bakelite in his pictures and if we can prove that there's that element in this picture then we've got the best unequivocal proof that we need yes absolutely right what we have to do now is very careful just to take the top layer of paint or the top layers of paint because we think that Van Meegeren reused canvases so we the top layers are definitely gonna be his paint and we hope but we think they might be bound in phenol formaldehyde resin because if you strike lower you could go to an earlier more honest even 17th century there possibly that's right if he used reused a canvas and scrubbed the top paint layers down then those first layers will be typical of the 17th century in your mind how crucial is this desk this is the absolute proof this test will tell us for sure whether is this by a van maker and or not you wouldn't have a hesitation not a hesitation it hasn't been used by any other forger that we know of back at the lab John is finding that forging an old master is no easy task van migrants toxic mix of paint and phenol formaldehyde is proving tough to handle John let's well it looks like yeah he looks a bit yes weird the paint is very the paint is it's a bit like painting with ground-up cornflakes and there's a help area here where the paint's actually dropped off and I've had said he drops off yes like a seasoned ESCA have you found as it'd been frustrating they're very very what's it make you think about van Negron and the way he worked in it was pretty clean stuff it's enormously clever it's very hard to understand that degree of commitment to to a strange process it's something very to go to such lengths to recreate something from the 17th century so baking next bin breaking next and ok if you had a bit of a go to see how that would have it's been a catastrophe van Negron's final and bizzle our stage was to bake his fakes heat should cause the phenol-formaldehyde to harden giving the painting a texture and appearance of an old master this distressing me is white paint that's why that's why I think I'm a baked it and I've got chocolate mousse somebody got chopped I did I mean it's it's it's very worrying well the moment has come should we actually put her in the oven who knows what we'll find when we come back it's going to be an agonizing wait as Jonas tests samples have shown if we get the temperature or the timing wrong our fate might be ruined it could come out a complete child mess it could actually burst into flames in that oven so it would be a real shame after all of this effort well could anyway to see really see what happens I'm also waiting anxiously while the kotel painting is undergoing its final crucial test the job requires a state of the art machine which the court hold isn't equipped with so the samples were sent to the lab in Amsterdam where class Ian's got to work under intense heat the paint sample breaks down into its component chemicals to reveal whether van migrants unique ingredient phenol formaldehyde is present in the court olds painting but what has a spell in the oven done to john's painting have we overcooked our fake looks pretty good actually it's smoothed out isn't it so we've really learned something from this sample actually because when we put it in the oven it looks you know you know the nicest possible way bit ropey yeah and and it is vastly improved with mm um right so what do we do next well I think we try again some cracking van migrant wood aged his fakes by causing the paint surface to crack but when we tried things start to go badly wrong the only thing is it's cracking oh look it's coming off it's coming off that would lift off now why not well I think we've taken this lady as far as we can go really probably a bit too far I think Van Meegeren is trounced as' yes he got over the final hurdle and we didn't quite get this I feel it I have here our attempt at reproducing around May grens techniques what do you think well I'd say it's sort of convincingly I know but that's the thing you know we baked it and bit started falling off I mean it's not a bad attempt but I have to say I would have taken it are you well no obviously it's falling apart at last it's here news from the lab in Amsterdam we shall find out once and for all whether Van Negron painted the procuress hyeseon glass in hi team has done the analysis of the sample that I took from the procuress at the court halls and the results is that the painting was painted with phenol formaldehyde resin which is very similar to bakelite we know definitely the procuress was painted by van mavin because it has bakelite in it that is correct yes so this is black and what is that it is van migrant it can only be by van negra yes because this is a modern synthetic resin which was only invented in the 20th century and formation was the only artist to our knowledge who has been using this material this is going to be so interesting from the point of view of not only the Courtauld Institute but the rice museum we've added another picture to the famous fakers irv so how do you feel about that I'm as excited as you are it's really a nice point I wouldn't have expected it myself but there it is Oh of the most prominent experts in this country have circulated this is a 17th century picture absolutely and it's made of bakelite and here we are we practice [Music] it was with great delight that I called a Viva at the Courtauld Institute finally to reveal the news all our hard work has paid off and this long overlooked painting is now again to be proudly displayed in the court house old master gallery as part of a special exhibition hi there hello hi fever how are you very well well gosh how amazing sit here in the court old yes it's it's great to see it here I mean there can't be many examples of where you get such a clear retribution as this I mean that's just they don't I don't think I've ever seen such an unequivocal result this is absolutely and clearly unmade Rijn do you feel differently about it yes it does make you think differently makes you feel more sure about its place in history what you're gonna do that it'll be very useful for the future for teaching and we're going to use it to show students about a case that's so clearly and distinctively a forgery I think that maple would have rather like this here e is hanging amongst all these old masters yes probably not quite what he imagined being hung as a forgery but you know he's in one of the most August art institutions in the world and they'll be studied by generations to come [Music]

Channel: mightwenotbehappy

Views: 290,267

Rating: 4.7805686 out of 5

Keywords: Van Meegeren, art, forgery, fiona bruce

Id: M2Vz8_5hc-M

Length: 58min 41sec (3521 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/ArthurSkelton]

dank. later even kijken