One of the most sensational scandals in art history comes to Jamestown Arts Center next week when renowned Vermeer scholar Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. takes the stage for a JAC Talk on Wednesday, August 5, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
In “Vermeer, Vermeer Forgeries, and the ‘Van Meegeren Affair,'” Wheelock will examine the 1947 trial of Dutch forger Han van Meegeren, who stunned the art world by claiming that paintings sold to the Nazis as priceless Vermeers were in fact his own creations. The revelation was particularly shocking after it emerged that The Supper at Emmaus — once celebrated as a Vermeer masterpiece — was a forgery.
Wheelock will also take a close look at Young Woman Seated at a Virginal from The Leiden Collection, exploring its attribution history, conservation treatment, and place within ongoing debates about Vermeer’s body of work.
Wheelock served for more than forty years as Curator of Northern Baroque Painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and is Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Maryland. He has organized major international Vermeer exhibitions and authored numerous publications on seventeenth-century Dutch art.
The event is pay-what-you-can. RSVPs are encouraged at jamestownartcenter.org.
