page_title: Han van Meegeren
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Han van Meegeren / Early years
caption_attribution_description: Han van Meegeren's Clubhouse "B". Han van Meegeren, the famous art-forger, designed this boat-house for his Rowing Club D.D.S. when he studied architecture in Delft from 1907 to 1913
context_page_description: Henricus Antonius "Han" van Meegeren was a Dutch painter and portraitist, considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century. Despite his life of crime, van Meegeren became a national hero after World War II when it was revealed that he had sold a forged painting to Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
  As a child, van Meegeren developed an enthusiasm for the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, and he set out to become an artist. Art critics, however, decried his work as tired and derivative, and van Meegeren felt that they had destroyed his career. He decided to prove his talent by forging paintings by famous artists including Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch and Johannes Vermeer. He so well replicated their styles that the best art critics and experts of the time accepted the paintings as genuine and sometimes exquisite. His most successful forgery was Supper at Emmaus, created in 1937 while he was living in the south of France; the painting was hailed as a real Vermeer by experts such as Abraham Bredius.
context_section_description: Han (a diminutive version of Henri or Henricus) van Meegeren was born in 1889 as the third of five children of middle-class Roman Catholic parents in the provincial city of Deventer. He was the son of Augusta Louisa Henrietta Camps and Hendrikus Johannes van Meegeren, a French and history teacher at the Kweekschool (training college for schoolteachers) in the city of Deventer.
  Early on, Han felt neglected and misunderstood by his father, as the elder van Meegeren strictly forbade his artistic development and constantly derided him. His father often forced him to write a hundred times, "I know nothing, I am nothing, I am capable of nothing." While attending the Higher Burger School, he met teacher and painter Bartus Korteling (1853–1930) who became his mentor. Korteling had been inspired by Johannes Vermeer and showed van Meegeren how Vermeer had manufactured and mixed his colours. Korteling had rejected the Impressionist movement and other modern trends as decadent, degenerate art, and his strong personal influence probably led van Meegeren to rebuff contemporary styles and paint exclusively in the style of the Dutch Golden Age.
  Van Meegeren's father did not share his son's love of art; instead, he compelled him to study architecture at the Technische Hogeschool (Delft Technical College) in Delft in 1907, the hometown of Johannes Vermeer. He received drawing and painting lessons, as well. He easily passed his preliminary examinations but he never took the Ingenieurs (final) examination because he did not want to become an architect. He nevertheless proved to be an apt architect and designed the clubhouse for his rowing club in Delft which still exists (see image).
  In 1913, van Meegeren gave up his architecture studies and concentrated on drawing and painting at the art school in The Hague. On 8 January 1913, he received the prestigious Gold Medal from the Technical University in Delft for his Study of the Interior of the Church of Saint Lawrence (Laurenskerk) in Rotterdam. The award was given every five years to an art student who created the best work, and was accompanied by a gold medal. 
  On 18 April 1912, van Meegeren married fellow art student Anna de Voogt who was expecting their first child. The couple went to live with Anna's grandmother in Rijswijk, and their son Jacques Henri Emil was born there on 26 August 1912. Jacques van Meegeren also became a painter; he died on 26 October 1977 in Amsterdam.
caption: Han van Meegeren designed this boathouse (the building left, adjoining an old tower in the town wall) for his Rowing Club D.D.S. while studying architecture in Delft from 1907 to 1913.
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