Edward Dolnick

Profiles the dramatic art hoax through which a small-time Dutch painter conned a reviled Nazi leader by creating works that impersonated those of famed artist Jan Vermeer, a seven-year deception during which the forger hid his mediocre artistic abilities through psychologically manipulative practices. 30,000 first printing.

A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century

The Forger's Spell

i have a feeling this quote will be sticking with me. really amazing book so far :))

annika

Every one of us makes “expert judgments” every day, too many to count. When you identify your father's voice from a single word over a crackly phone line or recognize your sister's walk by the funny way she swings her arms, even in dim light and from a block away, you are exercising precisely the skills of a connoisseur who glances at a painting and immediately says “Vermeer” or “second-rate.”

Author is so real for this take. I looked at the painting and yikes…

His fifth Vermeer, for instance, depicted Isaac Blessing Jacob. The figures are as flat as paper cutouts, and Jacob looks as if he is braced to receive a karate chop to the neck rather than a blessing

The amateur is unlikely to go wrong because he’s unlikely to go anywhere.

The Forger's Spell quotes

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