The Mysterious Box
The New Jersey sun was high overhead and the day was hot. The three boys walking along a deserted stretch of beach didn’t mind because they were barefoot and in their swimsuits. Occasionally they would dash in and out of the surf to cool off.
Suddenly Martin let out a yell as his toe hit something hard hidden in the sand at the water’s edge. A moment later Bill and Harley were helping Martin dig out a large wooden case. It was heavy, well built, tightly sealed, and had foreign words written on it.
“Maybe it’s a pirate treasure chest,” said Martin, who was almost eight and had just read Treasure Island for the first time the week before.
“You’re crazy,” said Harley, who, nearly ten, was much older and wiser.
Bill, going on twelve, thought aloud, “It must be something worthwhile; maybe we can sell it and buy those model rockets we wanted.”
The three boys soon found that they couldn’t open the box and that it was too heavy to drag along the sand easily.
“Martin,” said Bill, “get Dad while Harley and I stand guard.”
Two hours later the box was at their house and everyone in the family was trying to read what was written on it. About all that was readable was a large “U” followed by what appeared to be two numbers. Some of the other marks looked like old German script and there was a date, 1945.
“You know,” said Bill, “I bet that came from a World War II German submarine that our Coast Guard or Navy sank.”
“Let’s open it up!” said Harley as Martin ran to get the screwdrivers.
Inside they found a thoroughly waxed carton that they had to cut open. Everyone held their breath as their father lifted the top.
“Nothing but a bunch of pictures,” said Martin who was still hoping for pirate treasure.
“Paintings can be worth a lot of money,” said Dad, “thousands or even millions of dollars.”
“Well then we’re rich!” yelled Harley and Bill together.
“Not so fast,” said Dad. “First of all, we don’t know if the paintings are really valuable. Also, it looks like these might be part of the art treasures that the Nazis stole from the countries they conquered in World War II. Maybe someone was trying to get them by submarine to a neutral country, like Argentina, just before the end of the war, and the sub was sunk. If they are real and stolen, they’ll have to go back to their rightful owners. But cheer up, maybe there’s a reward.”
“How do we collect it?” asked Bill. “If the Nazis grabbed them, aren’t they real for sure?”
“Not necessarily,” Dad continued. “The Nazis were fooled sometimes by people who sold them fakes. There was one painting that Hitler’s sidekick, Göring, bought that was supposed to be a 17th century painting by Vermeer, a Dutch painter. Because Vermeer’s work is so valuable, it’s usually impossible to buy one for any amount of money.
“Vermeer is regarded as a national hero by the Dutch. The matter was investigated and the painting traced to Han Van Meegeren, a modern Dutch painter who had only a fair talent. When Van Meegeren realized he might be charged with treason by the Dutch for selling a Vermeer to the Nazis, he confessed that he had painted it himself. He also confessed that he had painted other forgeries that fooled some of the experts and were sold for a lot of money.
“Many people, however, thought Van Meegeren was only lying to save himself from the charge of treason, and the whole thing had to be decided by a committee of scientific art experts appointed by a court of law. Using the methods that were then available, the experts showed that Van Meegeren had done a remarkable job of forgery and they were convinced that he had been telling the truth about painting those pictures.
“At the time, the important ways the experts used to examine a painting included studying the work with X rays, which could show another painting underneath, analyzing the pigments (or coloring materials) used in the paint, and examining the painting for certain signs of old age.
Han Van Meegeren listens to the evidence at his trial in Amsterdam. In the background is “The Blessing of Jacob”, which was sold in 1942 as the work of Vermeer.
An authentic Pieter de Hooch work, “The Card Players”, painted in the 17th century.
A forgery of a Pieter de Hooch picture painted in the 20th century by Han Van Meegeren.
“Head of Christ” by Van Meegeren.
“Van Meegeren was well acquainted with these methods. He scraped the paint from old paintings that weren’t worth much just to get the canvas and tried to use pigments that Vermeer would have used. He knew that old paint was very, very hard and impossible to dissolve; so he cleverly mixed a chemical (phenolformaldehyde) into his paint, and this hardened into Bakelite when he heated the finished painting in an oven.
“For some of the paintings, Van Meegeren became careless and the experts did find traces of a modern pigment (cobalt blue) in the paint. They also found the Bakelite. For one or more paintings, Van Meegeren did so well that, in spite of all this evidence, a few people still weren’t convinced that these paintings were painted by Van Meegeren and not by Vermeer.”
Bill, who by this time was bursting with questions, interrupted, “You mean they still aren’t sure about some of those paintings after 25 years? Aren’t there better ways of telling whether a painting is genuine or not? You’re a scientist. Can’t scientists like you do something about it now?”
“Yes, recently a method was developed to settle just such a question. It’s based on measurements of natural radioactivity in one pigment that all artists used hundreds of years ago. And the method was applied to some of the Van Meegeren paintings including the best one of them all.”
“How did it come out?” asked Martin.
An X ray of part of the Van Meegeren forgery, “Christ and His Disciples at Emmaus”. In the white circle are traces of paint from the original painting that Van Meegeren scraped off to obtain the old canvas. When the painting was believed to be a genuine Vermeer, it was sold for about $300,000.
The complete painting.
A Van Meegeren forgery of a Vermeer.
“How does it work?” asked Harley.
“You mean paintings are radioactive?” exclaimed Bill.
“Can we do it to the paintings we found?” asked all three together.