After the war, van Meegeren was charged with treason for selling national treasures to the enemy. It was only then that he revealed that he’d created the national treasures himself. One thing that Dolnick does not discuss, in the end, is how we might reconstruct our perception of Vermeer’s oeuvre in the wake of the scandal. In the 60 years that have elapsed since van Meegeren’s forgeries were unveiled, have we gotten closer to being able to tell a fake from the genuine article?

"The Con Artist" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.