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

"The Forger's Spell" offers up a cartoon version of history, leavened, to ill effect, by bombastic and cliche-ridden writing. Edward Dolnick seems to think of the Van Meegeren story as a light-hearted romp through World War II, where war criminals like Hermann Goering are shown to be "rubes" by the clever forger. That Van Meegeren himself was a Nazi-sympathizer seems unimportant in this storyline, as does the fact that there was nothing particularly humorous about the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

Dolnick brings to light absolutely nothing new about the Van Meegeren case, relying almost exclusively on already published sources. To make up for this dearth of real research, he indulges in a great deal of pop-psychological musing on the nature of deception, about which he also has very little to say. He appears to know next to nothing about Dutch art, referring to Caspar Netscher as a "long-forgotten" painter. This book, moreover, is poorly structured. It repeats itself over and over again, and could easily have been pared of half its bulk without losing anything except tedium.

There is a much better book on Van Meegeren called "The Man Who Made Vermeers," which has just come out recently. It's intelligent, engaging, and thoroughly researched - everything that "The Forger's Spell" is not. I would certainly recommend it over "The Forger's Spell," which really is not a book that needed to be written. (That said, "The Man Who Made Vermeers," is not perfect: the writing is a bit too colloquial for my taste.)

Tempting though it would be to award "The Forger's Spell" only one star, I feel that I must give it two because Van Meegeren's story has in fact been told even more idiotically by Frank Wynne, who set a standard for quality so low that even the Mr. Dolnick is unable to stoop down far enough to meet it.

I almost gave this a 5 star. It is a really well written detailed book about the man who fooled Goering and sold him a fake bill of goods during WW11 and learning afterwards what Goering's reaction was is what the cost of this book.
However, somewhere in the middle of this book, the author strays a bit and goes into too much detail about other forgers and the book loses me. It would have rated a 5 star had it stayed with the main culprit of this story, possibly resulting in the book being leaner.

Wonderfully engaging and informative book! I highly recommend it, as well as the documentary, Rape of Europa, for further context on the highly fraught artistic landscape during WWII under Hitler.

Not having read Edward Dolnick's previous book, "The Rescue Artist", I did not come to read "The Forger's Spell" with primed expectations. Mr. Dolnick succeeds in what many writers on this subject fail to do by showing and not telling the finer points of his subject. Far from being pedantic, the author's storyteller's style draws the reader into the world of art connaisseurship,forgers and dupes with ease. The only pan is the author's light treatment of Goerring, Hitler and their Nazi band of thieves. The cover clearly implies that there will be Nazis getting their comeupance as a result of their own greed and stupidity. And they do, but not in a way that satisfies.

Most well done, Forger's Spell leads through the psychological differences between the 17th and 20th century approaches to art. A backdrop is well set for understanding what appeals to the beholder, both expert and amateur. One comes to understand how a past generation could find beauty and authenticity in a fake that looks so ugly and kitschy to us today. "The Forger's Spell" gives us an appreciation we can take with us on our next visit to the art museum.

The Forger's Spell is a delightful romp through and around the Han Van Meeregen phenomenon, even if some of the chapters are repetitious. I especially enjoyed the description of the work that went into developing materials to mislead so-called experts and high points of the 1947 trial. It was the best book I have read in this genre since a book I read in the 1980's explaining how forgers build 18th century antique furniture from wood salvaged from old houses on the east coast.

For anyone who has had to listen too much to the fine arts chattering class crowd this book is proof that fine arts are only entertainment, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and, (on the pop psychology level) that while seeing is believing, believing is also seeing.