Isaque Abençoando Jacó

The war years were a good time to sell a Vermeer that did not exist. With money nervous and magnates hunting for safe, glorious things to own, Han van Meegeren's supply of freshly discovered Vermeers met a hungry market. In 1942 he sold this large biblical scene, Isaac blessing his son Jacob, to the Rotterdam shipping magnate Willem van der Vorm for around 1,270,000 guilders. The subject was shrewd. Almost no religious Vermeers were known, so buyers had little to compare it against, and the aged look of the surface did the rest. Exposed with the other fakes after 1945, it has hung since 1972 on loan at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.