It was one of the strangest trials  in Dutch history. The defendant in this 1947 case  was an art forger who had counterfeited millions of dollars  worth of paintings. But he wasn’t arguing his innocence— in fact, his life depended on proving  that he had committed the fraud. Like many art forgers,  Han van Meegeren was an artist whose original works had failed  to bring him renown. Embittered towards the art world, van Meegeren set out to make fools  of his detractors. He learned all he could  about the Old Masters— their biographies, their techniques,  and their materials. The artist he chose for his deception  was 17th century Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer— an ambitious decision given Vermeer  was famed for his carefully executed and technically brilliant domestic scenes. Working in secret for six years,  the forger perfected his art, copying numerous works as practice. He mixed his own paints  after researching the raw materials and pigments available in Vermeer’s time. He bought 17th century canvases,  created his own brushes, and aged the works  by applying synthetic resin and baking them to dry  and crack the paint. A forensic test could have detected  the synthetic resin. But at the time, such tests  were neither advanced nor widespread, and even today verification  of a painting’s authenticity relies on the assessment  of art specialists. So it’s a matter of their subjective  judgment— as well as their reputation. And this is where van Meegeren  truly outwitted the art world. From his research, he knew historians  believed Vermeer had an early period of religious painting influenced  by the Italian painter Caravaggio. The leading authority on Vermeer,  Abraham Bredius, was a huge proponent of this theory,  though none of these works had surfaced. So van Meegeren decided to make one. He called it "The Supper at Emmaus." Bredius declared van Meegeren’s fake  the masterpiece of Vermeer’s oeuvre. Van Meegeren’s forgery was not totally  up to Vermeer’s technical standards, but these inconsistencies  could be made to fit the narrative: this was an early work, produced before  the artist had come into his own. With the stamp of approval  from the art world, the fake was sold in 1937  for the equivalent of over $4 million in today’s money. The success prompted van Meegeren  to forge and sell more works through various art dealers. As unbelievable as it may sound, the art world continued to believe  in their authenticity. When the Nazis occupied Holland  during the Second World War, Hermann Göring,  one of Hitler’s top generals, sought to add a Vermeer  to his collection of artwork looted from all over Europe. Van Meegeren obliged, selling him  an alleged early Vermeer painting titled "Christ with the Adulteress." As the tide of the war turned,  so did van Meegeren’s luck. Following the Allied victory, he was  arrested for delivering a priceless piece of Dutch heritage to the Nazis—  an act of treasonous collaboration punishable by death. To prove the painting  wasn’t a national treasure, he explained step-by-step  how he had forged it. But he faced an unexpected obstacle—  the very expert who had enabled his scam. Moved to protect his reputation, Bredius  defended the painting’s authenticity. With few options left, van Meegeren  set to work on a "new" Vermeer. When he presented the fake to the court,  they finally believed him. He was acquitted for collaborating  with the Nazis— and sentenced to a year imprisonment  for fraud. Though there’s evidence that van Meegeren  did, in fact, collaborate with the Nazis, he managed to convince the public  that he had tricked Göring on purpose, transforming his image into that  of a folk hero who had swindled the Nazis. Thanks to this newfound notoriety, his works became valuable  in their own right— so much so that they were later forged  in turn by his own son. The same canvases went from  revered classics to despised forgeries to works of art respected for the skill  and notoriety of the forger.