El lavatorio de los pies

In 1943 the Netherlands was under German occupation, and Dutch officials were anxious to keep great national art out of the occupiers' hands. So the State itself bought this large religious scene, signed with a forged Vermeer monogram, for around 1,300,000 guilders. Not everyone was convinced. A Rijksmuseum committee member called it a fake, and one curator wrote privately that it was absurd to think Vermeer could have painted anything so weak. He was right, though about the wrong master. Han van Meegeren had made it a year or two earlier, and later analysis found pigments in the paint that did not exist until the 19th century. After his arrest and the 1947 trial the picture stayed in Amsterdam, and it is at the Rijksmuseum today.