van gogh fakes: the wacker affair, with an illustrated catalogue of the forgeries

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Van Gogh Fakes: The Wacker Affair, with an Illustrated Catalogue of the Forgeries Author(s): Walter Feilchenfeldt Source: Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 19, No. 4 (1989), pp. 289- 316 Published by: Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3780755 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 13:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.79.69 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 13:53:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Van Gogh Fakes: The Wacker Affair, with an Illustrated Catalogue of the Forgeries

Van Gogh Fakes: The Wacker Affair, with an Illustrated Catalogue of the ForgeriesAuthor(s): Walter FeilchenfeldtSource: Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 19, No. 4 (1989), pp. 289-316Published by: Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische PublicatiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3780755 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 13:53

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.69 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 13:53:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Van Gogh Fakes: The Wacker Affair, with an Illustrated Catalogue of the Forgeries

289

Van Gogh fakes: the Wacker affair, with an illustrated catalogue of the forgeries

Walter Feilchenfeldt "Suspicion has been cast on some thirty works by van Gogh, put on the market by the art dealer Otto Wacker, which are now thought to be forgeries. Within a short space of time this has done more for the artist's fame than his prophets were able to achieve in 30 years."*

This article considers the subject of 33 paintings attri- buted to van Gogh (figs. I, 2), which were first pro- nounced genuine in the standard catalogue of his work, then collectively rejected as fakes, and at a yet later stage partially reclassified as genuine. Today it is an estab- lished fact that the pictures are fakes, so it is difficult to comprehend how neither the art experts nor the courts at that time were able to reach satisfactory conclusions.

While it cannot be denied that every popular work on art forgery scandals has its chapter on van Gogh and Wacker, only experts on van Gogh, and the few still left alive who knew Berlin in the 1920S, truly comprehend the significance of the name of Wacker. I

My father, Walter Feilchenfeldt, who, together with Grete Ring, was then partner and managing director of the firm of Paul Cassirer in Berlin, made the connection between a number of works supposedly by van Gogh, which he recognized as fakes, and Otto Wacker, thus unleashing the scandal which began in January 1928 with the opening of the van Gogh exhibition at Cas- sirer's, and ended in December 1932 with Wacker being

found guilty of fraud and the falsification of documents. The details of this affair, Otto Wacker's statements

about the provenance of his pictures, and the embarrass- ing role played by the so-called art experts are nowa- days, when all is said and done, of purely historical inter- est. The question of genuine and fake in van Gogh's work, however, remains a problem which has awaited a solution ever since Baart de la Faille produced the first standard catalogue of van Gogh's oeuvre at the time of the Wacker scandal in 1928.

It is important to distinguish between three types of fake. i Forgeries, that is to say works which were manufac- tured with intent to deceive.

2 Works which were wrongly attributed to van Gogh simply because they were among Theo's estate.

3 A mixture of both, i.e. works which were wrongly ascribed to van Gogh having been signed "Vincent" with intent to deceive. In this case a court would re- gard the fraud as aggravated by the fact that docu- ments had been forged.

* Die Weltbuhne, 15 February I929: "Etwa dreissig van Goghs, die der Kunsthandler Otto Wacker auf den Markt gebracht hat, sind als Fal- schungen verdachtigt worden. Damit ist in kurzer Zeit mehr fur des Kunstlers Ruhm geschehen, als seine Propheten in dreissig Jahren vollbringen konnten." An extensive bibliography on the Wacker af- fair, including references to newspaper reports on the trial, has been lodged by the author with the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam. The article was translated from the German by Jane Hedley-Pr6le.

i See Cornelis Veth, Fa/sche Experten?-Falsche Expertisen!, Ber- lin [I932]; Frank Arnau, Kunst der Fa/scher-Fa/scher der Kunst, Dusseldorf I956, pp. i85-97; Sepp Schiller, Fa/scher, Handler und Experten, Munich 1959, pp. i06-20; Lawrence Jeppson, Thefascinat- ingfrauds, New York 1970, pp. 8i-i03.

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Page 3: Van Gogh Fakes: The Wacker Affair, with an Illustrated Catalogue of the Forgeries

290 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

33 BILDER, ANGEBLICH VON VAN GOGH, die der Verfasser dei 0euvre-Kaialoges, J. B. de la Faille, aufgenommen hat und nachtraglich fur faisch erklart.

Die Nummern unter den Bildem sind die Katalognummern.

Wir kotmmen auf die Angelegenheit im nachsten lleft ausfuhrlich zuruck.

_25 M3 521 .23

577 614 816

639 685 590 9u ilki~~~~~~~~~- 111 81

iiand 2 "33 Bilder, angeblich von Van Gogh," Kunst und Kuinstier I 928, nr. 3

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Page 4: Van Gogh Fakes: The Wacker Affair, with an Illustrated Catalogue of the Forgeries

Van Gogh fakes: the Wacker affair 291

ts ' _; #13 ~~~~~ ~~52- big bis -41 bis 74S big

347 418 421

i36

705 713

23 - 2 _

71 bi 41a_~ 651~

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Page 5: Van Gogh Fakes: The Wacker Affair, with an Illustrated Catalogue of the Forgeries

292 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

This article is intended as a first step in the process of reducing the number of fakes listed in the standard cata- logue of van Gogh's work. Only when the provenance has been established of all those works by van Gogh which did not originally belong to his brother Theo, and after the latter's death to his widow Johanna, will it be possible to eliminate from van Gogh's oeuvre those paintings which first appeared in the latter half of the 1920S, i.e. 35 years after they had (supposedly) been painted. This will be a greater number than the 33 works discussed here, whose pedigree extends back no further than Otto Wacker.

Although the provenance of these works was obscure right from the outset, de la Faille, Meier-Graefe and Rosenhagen had sufficient confidence in Otto Wacker to issue certificates of authenticity. Wacker, clearly pos- sessed of a confidence trickster's charm, had succeeded in lulling these experts' suspicions and in gaining not only their cooperation but also that of distinguished fel- low-experts. Hugo Perls and the Thannhauser, Mat- thiesen and Goldschmidt galleries bought "van Goghs" from him.2 All had certificates issued by de la Faille and Meier-Graefe, which Wacker invoked at every oppor- tunity.3

It is perfectly standard practice in the art world to conceal one's supplier's identity. However, this is only accepted when the dealer in question has impeccable credentials. Wacker's patchy tale of the original owner being a Russian of the imperial dynasty who bought 30 van Goghs at an early date, illicitly transferred them to Switzerland and illegally commissioned an agent to sell them, and whose identity could therefore not be dis- closed (a further reason given being the possibility of reprisals against relatives still living in the Soviet Un- ion), should immediately have undermined his credibil- ity to the extent that no court case need ever have been necessary.4

The legal proceedings, which were given extensive coverage in the press, did much to make van Gogh a household name. No catalogue of his work, no publica- tion of his letters, no record prices and no major exhibi- tions netted him so much publicity as the Wacker scan- dal and the attendant battle of the experts.

Even before the First World War, van Gogh was ap- preciated more in Germany than in other countries. In the summer of 1914, at the time of the major van Gogh exhibition at Paul Cassirer's in Berlin, I 20 of the artist's works were owned by Germans. 5 Writing on the subject of art prices in 1913, Meier-Graefe stated: "Van Gogh's position in the market is rapidly approaching Cezanne's. His works fetch 20 to 40 times what they did ten years ago, and since his death, that is to say in little more than two decades, the price of his works has increased four to six hundredfold. Major works such as L'Arlisienne at Sternheim's and The garden of the asylum with Theo Behrens in Hamburg, which in i890 cost ioo francs and in i900 something between one and two thousand francs, might now even fetch more than the most expen- sive Cezanne."6

Carl Sternheim described how he saw L'Arlisienne in i908 in the window of W. Zimmermann's gallery in Munich, and bought it for the then record price of DM I3,000.7 The other version of L'Arlisienne turns up in I917 in Paul Cassirer's account books. That picture, which had belonged to the painter Bernt Gronvold, was sold to the Mannheim industrialist Sally Falk for DM 133,000.8 This is one of the highest prices ever recorded in the Cassirer books for a work of any school at that time. The Cassirer firm, though, had less to do with van Gogh than it had before the war, for relations with Johanna van Gogh had been severed. In Paris, too, there were very few works by van Gogh on the market. Grete Ring described this time as "the beginning of the great years of an illusory economic boom, which brought a

2 See J.-B. de la Faille, Les faux van Goghs, Paris & Brussels 1930, P- 3-

3 Ibid., pp. 5-12. 4 See "Der Brief des unbekannten Russen," Berliner Tageblatt, 12

April 1932. 5 See Walter Feilchenfeldt, Vincent van Gogh & Paul Cassirer,

Berlin: the reception of Van Gogh in Germanyfrom I9OI to I9I4 (Cahier Vincent, 2), Zwolle I988, p. 42.

6 Julius Meier-Graefe, "Handel und Handler," Kunst und Kunstler II (1913), p. 206: "Van Gogh steht auf dem Markt gegenwartig auf annahernd demselben Niveau wie Cezanne und ist in den letzten zehn

Jahren um das Zwanzig- bis Vierzigfache, seit seinem Tode, also fast innerhalb zwei Dezennien, um das Vier- bis Sechshundertfache ge- stiegen. Hauptwerke wie die Arlisienne bei Sternheim oder der Irren- hausgarten bei Theo Behrens in Hamburg, die um das Jahr I 890 hun- dert, um das Jahr I900 etwa tausend bis zweitausend Francs kosteten, durften momentan sogar hoher als die teuersten Werke Czannes be- zahlt werden."

7 Carl Sternheim, Vorkriegs Europa im Gleichnis meines Lebens, Amsterdam 1936, p. 132.

8 Cassirer account books, in the author's possession.

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Van Gogh fakes: the Wacker affair 293

brief period of genuine prosperity to the art market. At the time there was a strong demand in Germany for works by van Gogh, which could not be satisfied by the pictures already in circulation. Art-lovers, particularly the Germans among them, do not buy pictures purely for their appearance; they tend to appreciate artists for their philosophical or literary qualities. To them van Gogh represents more than a painter of beautifully col- ored pictures, they revere in him the figure of tragic genius, the author of the moving revelations contained in his letters: van Gogh's paintings are somehow, at the same time, a kind of poet's autograph. In this light it is easy to understand the eagerness with which the Berlin dealers fell upon Wacker's goods. Here were the much sought-after late van Goghs-works that portrayed po- pular themes, at prices attractive to the bourgeoisie, within easy reach and fully authenticated. The readiness to accept the paintings was such that it dulled critical instincts, which were totally obliterated by the expert certificates. It is only fair to admit that under certain circumstances a conscientious dealer and art expert can be taken in by a forgery which awakes in him certain mental or perceptual associations which derive from his very familiarity with the genuine works of the master in question."9

In this respect a special role is played by van Gogh's letters. Familiarity with them, coupled with a know- ledge of the artist's life, affects the way in which his works are regarded. The viewer often reads his own interpretation into the work of art, thus obscuring its visual impression. Johanna van Gogh was aware of this danger, which caused her to withhold the letters from publication until such time as her brother-in-law's work was sufficiently well-known. I 0

When they examined the paintings, the van Gogh experts-in the first place Baart de la Faille, H. P. Brem- mer and Meier-Graefe-were unable to reconcile their knowledge and expectations of van Gogh's work with the visual impression created by the works themselves.

The definitive judgment of the Wacker pictures thus lies in the technical field, as well as upon the question of their provenance.

Otto Wacker had tried various professions before be- coming an art dealer in I925. He succeeded in establish- ing a sound reputation with dealers and experts in the van Gogh field, and de la Faille and Meier-Graefc con- stantly stressed their faith in his integrity. Paul Cas- sirer's, too, in the persons of Walter Feilchenfeldt and Grete Ring, had also embarked on a cooperative venture with Wacker. Together they planned a major van Gogh exhibition on the occasion of the publication of de la Faille's standard catalogue of the artist's work. The drawings were to be shown in a new gallery set up by Wacker, and Cassirer's was to help arrange loans. This was to be followed by an exhibition of paintings in the Paul Cassirer showrooms, for which Wacker was in turn to arrange loans. The exhibition of drawings at Wacker's opened in December 1927. The catalogue listed i i8 drawings. I I De la Faille had written the preface. Meier- Graefe had assisted, and at the same time a book of his appeared, published by Wacker, entitled Van Gogh der Zeichner. The press reviewed the exhibition favorably, and was impressed by the new gallery in Victoriastrasse.

The opening of the exhibition of paintings at Paul Cassirer's was imminent. The pictures had already been hung, with the exception of four which were still to come from Wacker. Space had been left for them on the walls,

9 Grete Ring, "Der Fall Wacker," Kunst und Kunstler 3I (I932), p. i6o: "...den Beginn der grossen Jahre der wirtschaftlichen Schein- blute, die dem Kunsthandel eine kurze wirkliche Blute gebracht hat- ten. Damals herrschte in Deutschland ein ausgesprochenes Beduirfnis nach Bildern van Gogh's, das sich aus dem bekannten Material nicht befriedigen liess. Der Amateur, besonders der deutsche, kauft nicht ausschliesslich nach optischen Gesichtspunkten: die Neigung zu einem Kunstler geht bei ihm ofters uber das Gedankliche, das Litera- rische. In van Gogh sieht er nicht nur den Schopfer farbenschoner Bilder, er verehrt in ihm die Personlichkeit mit dem tragisch-genia- lischen Lebensschicksal, den Verfasser der erschutternden brieflichen Bekenntnisse: van Gogh'sche Bilder sind-zugespitzt formuliert- gleichzeitig eine Art Dichterautogramme. Es erscheint danach ver- standlich, wenn die Berliner Handler sich zu der Wacker'schen Ware

drangten: hier gab es die gesuchten spaten van Goghs, die beliebten Sujets darstellend, zu burgerlichen Preisen, muhelos greifbar, voll bestatigt. Die Bereitwilligkeit zur Aufname der Bilder betaubte den kritischen Sinn, den die schutzende Expertise vollends ausschaltete. Man muss gerecht sein und gestehen, dass unter bestimmten Ver- haltnissen das falsche Bild auch den gewissenhaften Handler und Kenner tauschen kann, weil es bei ihm gegebenenfalls Gedanken- und Empfindungsassoziationen auslost, die er gerade aus seiner nahen Kenntnis des echten Werkes eines Meisters gewonnen haben mag."

Io See Vincent van Gogh: Briefe an semen Bruder, Berlin 1914, foreword by Johanna van Gogh-Bonger.

ii Exhib. cat. Vincent van Gogh: erste grosse Ausstellung seiner Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, Berlin (Otto Wacker) I927.

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294 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

and when they arrived they were placed in their allotted positions, prior to being hung. At that moment Grete Ring was walking round the exhibition. She saw the can- vases standing on the floor, stopped dead, then called for Walter Feilchenfeldt. Both agreed that all four were fakes.'2 Wacker was informed, and the pictures were returned to him.

De la Faille's catalogue raisonne' of van Gogh's work appeared at the same time,'3 and careful study of this publication made it quite evident that not only these four, but a grand total of 33 suspect paintings were listed, all originating from Otto Wacker or a "Swiss private collection." The Thannhauser, Matthiesen and Marcel Goldschmidt galleries, which had acquired Wacker van Goghs, arrived at the same conclusion, in- formed the owners and took back the paintings. Hugo Perls, a lawyer by training (who, incidentally, had pur- chased most of these works), decided, just as Wacker had done, to insist on the authenticity of the Wacker pictures in which he had dealt. In December I928 Mat- thiesen, represented by the Federation of German Art and Antique Dealers, instituted legal proceedings against Wacker.

It was not until 1932 that the public prosecutor's of- fice finally brought the charges. The case opened on 6 April I932. Vincent Willem van Gogh, the artist's ne- phew, was the first to be heard as a witness.'4 In his testimony he stated that no pictures in his family's pos- session had been sold to a Russian. The only person to have bought works from his mother in the early years had been Paul Cassirer. His family had kept records of the pictures sold. The records did not indicate that a Russian had bought a large number of van Gogh's works. This testimony was in fact the most important of the whole trial. The works did not, therefore, originate from Theo's estate. So where did they come from? How could 33 canvases have disappeared one by one between i890 and 1925 only to reappear collectively through the medium of Otto Wacker?

De la Faille had already put this question to the art- ist's nephew in January 1928, when the first suspicion arose concerning Wacker. Mr van Gogh had replied to his query by letter, dated i6 March I928 (fig. 3).'I At the time, de la Faille must immediately have decided to list all the Wacker canvases in his Les faux van Goghs, which was published in 1930. When he was examined as a witness he exhibited renewed uncertainty and incon- sistency, and stated that he had erred once again; he now believed five of the 33 pictures to be genuine after all. I 6 He claimed that he had been so overcome by doubt as to lose sight of the absolute objectivity required for his task. When asked on what this new certainty was based, de la Faille took the example of the questionable hay- stack painting, which he said had been executed in a manner that tallied exactly with the description given by Vincent in one of his letters. '7 This argument was ren- dered even more absurd when he declared, in his press statement of io April I932, that both the F625bis and F736 haystack pictures were genuine, whereas in the new edition of his catalogue of van Gogh's work, published in 1939 by Hyperion, he listed only F625bis as authen- tic. He then added six Wacker paintings, including F736, as genuine works in a supplement.I8 He furthermore stressed that the Dutch experts H.P. Bremmer, W. Scherjon, Jos de Gruyter, and others, shared his view, while all the German specialists had collectively classi- fied all the Wacker pictures as fakes. ' 9 This elevated the battle of the van Gogh experts into a national power struggle between academics.

Meier-Graefe, in his testimony, also admitted that he had made a mistake. He now believed all the pictures to be fakes. At the time he had harbored no suspicions against Wacker, but now he had his doubts. He claimed that experts' opinions were of limited value. Collectors who bought pictures on the basis of such opinions were themselves to blame if they were duped.20

Hans Rosenhagen, who had reviewed the first van Gogh exhibition at Cassirer's in i90i and had written

i2 They were F4i8bis, F527bis, F625bis and F69i. 13 J.-B. de la Faille, L'Oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh, Paris & Brussels

1928. 14 See "Die falschen van Gogh's," Berliner Tageblatt, 3 April 1932. I5 Letter from V.W. van Gogh to J.-B. de la Faille, i6 March 1928,

Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh (Vincent van Gogh Foundation), Amsterdam.

i6 Statement by J.-B. de la Faille, Berlin, io April I932. The works

which he now accepted as genuine were F4V8, F523, F625biS, F639 and F736.

17 See "Funf van Goghs echt?," Berliner Tageblatt, i i April 1932. I8 J.-B. de la Faille, Van Gogh, Paris 1939, the genuine pictures

being F385, F523, F4V8, F736, F614, F639. I9 Ibid., p. 553. 20 "Wenn Sachverstandige irren...," Berliner Borsenzeitung, I7

April 1932.

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Van Gogh fakes: the Wacker affair 295

positive reports on I4 of the Wacker canvases, now testi- fied that he regarded the works as inferior but genuine.

H.P. Bremmer, described by the press as a Dutch private tutor of art appreciation and advisor to Mrs Kroller-Muller, stated that the distinction between gen- uine and fake could only be made on the basis of inner perception. He attempted to find evidence for his inner perception in the use of line and color. He believed eight pictures to be genuine and eight to be forgeries.2'

Professor Ludwig Justi, Director of the Nationalga- lerie in Berlin, who in December I928 had exhibited the van Goghs from the Kroller-Muller collection in the Kronprinzenpalais, having hung ten of the Wacker van Goghs in an adjoining room for comparative purposes, declared all Wacker pictures to be "forgeries beyond any doubt," adding that they were of variable quality. Each lacked the signs of the artist's struggle with his sub- ject.22

The Dutch painter A.M. de Wild submitted the re- sults of pigment tests. Resin traces had been found in the paint of the Wacker pictures which were not present in the paint used by van Gogh.23

The restorer Kurt Wehlte produced X-rays of a gen- uine and a fake van Gogh which clearly showed a differ- ence in the technique of the two paintings.24 Ironically, the picture used as the control in this experiment was the Wheatfield with reaper (figs. 4, 5) which was classified as a forgery in the I970 catalogue.25 It had belonged to the Nationalgalerie, and went missing during the Second World War, so it is impossible to use present-day ex- pertise to arrive at a stylistic judgment. The origin of this "genuine" picture cannot be traced straight back to the van Gogh family. The trail leads instead to the Paris art market, thus making it quite possible that it too was a fake. If this is indeed the case, the X-ray would have proved only that the two canvases were painted by dif- ferent forgers.

The situation was further confused by the fact that the police found and impounded a further copy of the

16 Maart 1928

Zeer geachto Hear de la Faille,

Naar aenlelding van one gesprok van heden morgen hob lk *ons naeogasa of ik eenige notitle kon vinden over eon dertlgtal sohilderlJond'i vrooger aan ijn soeder en mij souden bohoord hobben,en d81 nu la *a Zwiteoraoho collootle zoudes zlJn.

Ik hob ulots kunnes vindes daeromtrent,terwlJl lk m1J persoonlljk oolck nets heriner.

Alloen sag Ik dat onstreeke 1893 oen sealer In endore handen in ovorgegean*,trwliJ. In 1906 Casslrer eon Zoua boeft gekocht (doze beld* titela nosed. U lJa).

Ovorigene is Caselrer do eenige geweest die meer don dertlg sahilderi Jn van mija soeder kocht.

later zlJn door Bernhel.,do Bolse.a.naer mlJn weten ook nooit zoo ngroot aantal overgenoaen.

De waarshljnllJltheld lltJt .ij due niet groot dat sija sooder over dese aangel*g*nheld heft gecorreenondeerd.

Met vrlendel1Jke groet teeken 1k,

hoogachtend on du.

Y.g

3 Letter from V. W. van Gogh to J.-B. de la Faille, i6 March 1928

subject after searching Wacker's house in Dusseldorf (fig. 6).26 Wacker's father was a painter and his brother a restorer. The impounded picture is stored in the Na- tionalgalerie in East Berlin, together with Kurt Wehlte's X-rays. As can be seen from the photograph (fig. 7), the paint has sprung in many places, a process which was already beginning to affect the Wacker van Goghs at the time of the trial.

21 "Sachverstandige im Van-Gogh-Prozess," Berliner Tageblatt, I2 April 1932; genuine: F385, F4V8, F523, F614, F625 bis, F639, F736, F824; fake: F387, F421, F6i6, F685, F69i, F813, F705, F7I3.

22 "Justi's Gutachten," Berliner Tageblatt, 13 April 1932. 23 "Drei Maler sollen im Van-Gogh-Prozess aussagen," Berliner

Tageblatt, I4 April I932.

24 "Van Gogh im Rontgenbild," Berliner Tageblatt, I4 April I932. 25 J.-B. de la Faille, The works of Vincent van Gogh: his paintings

and drawings, Amsterdam I970, p. 594. 26 Theodor Stoperan, "Was wird aus den van Gogh Falschun-

gen?," Das Kunstblatt (I3) I929, p. 346.

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296 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

4 Vincent van Gogh, Wheatfield with a reaper. Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller

5 "Vincent van Gogh", Wheatfield with a reaper-harvest; reduction of the version for Gauguin (fig. 4), rejected. Formerly Berlin, Nationalgalerie

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6 "Vincent van Gogh", Wheatfield with a reaper; forgery found at Wacker's workshop in Dusseldorf. Berlin, Nationalgalerie; photograph of I932

K.

7 99 htgrp f i.

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298 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

Ludwig Thormaehlen, curator under Justi at the Na- tionalgalerie, gave a well-reasoned, art-historical dis- course during which he drew attention to unconvincing color combinations and incorrectly interpreted motifs in the Wacker pictures. He believed that they had been forged on the basis of drawings which the forger had misread. 27

Hellmuth Ruhemann, chief conservator at the Berlin Staatliche Gemaldegalerie, gave evidence on the basis of scientific analysis and of color and cleaning tests. He stated that these had shown beyond doubt that i i of the i 6 works which had been examined were forgeries.28 He referred to dirt and indentations which had been artifi- cially introduced. It was clear from this that the paint- ings had been executed with the deliberate intention of passing them off as genuine.

Walter Feilchenfeldt and Grete Ring testified that they had seen all these pictures over the last few years on widely differing occasions, and had rejected them either on the grounds that they were indifferent works or that they were fakes.29 They had also made enquiries in Rus- sia concerning the dubious owner. There was no know- ledge there of any collector owning works by van Gogh. Details of the Wacker affair had got as far as the Soviet Union.

Franz Zatzenstein of the Matthiesen Gallery testified that he had briefly commissioned Wacker to sell the Olive grove from the Mauthner Collection. Immediately afterward, Wacker offered two previously unknown ver- sions of the same subject for sale.30

Justin Thannhauser testified that he had held a van Gogh exhibition in I927. Wacker had offered him a pic- ture which he had bought, despite its dubious origins. It was exhibited in Paris and sold to an American buyer. Thannhauser had taken the painting back.

The verdict was announced on i9 April 1932. The court found Wacker guilty of cumulative fraud, in some cases combined with the falsification of documents. Some of the canvases were signed, and in three cases Wacker had lied about a work's provenance. The sen- tence, after appeal, was i9 months' imprisonment and a fine of DM 30,OOO.3I

After the war, Otto Wacker lived in East Berlin. He was known to the staff of the city's Nationalgalerie, but had abandoned the art business.

Today we must ask ourselves the same question that was asked at the time. What are the characteristics of forged van Goghs?

Theodor Stoperan, the managing director of Paul Cassirer's before the First World War, later published an article on this subject which deserves particular men- tion, since he makes the point that one is dealing with deliberate swindlers in the case of fakes of this type. "It was quite clear to me," he wrote, "having had dealings with van Gogh's works since i9oi, and having assem- bled and hung some 12 van Gogh exhibitions, that the i6 paintings brought together in the Kronprinzenpalais were deliberate forgeries. They had been made to look like van Goghs, with the intention of selling them as the genuine item. The paintings' spuriousness is betrayed not only by artistic elements, which form the most im- portant criterion for the expert. There are differences between genuine van Goghs and these forgeries which are evident to every layman. i All genuine works painted by van Gogh during or after his stay in Paris are painted on typical French canvas. The forgeries, on the other hand, are not painted on French canvas.

2 Most of the forgeries have small canvas imprints, in- tended to create the impression that newly painted pictures had been placed on top of one another while still wet. If that had indeed been the case, such im- pressions would have extended across the entire sur- face of the painting, and would not have been confined to only a few areas. Marks of this kind are not found on genuine works by van Gogh.

3 The paint on all the forged canvases shows slight cracks, or "craquelure." This, too, is never found in genuine works by van Gogh. The only cracking found in certain genuine works are longer cracks in the paint caused by rolling up the canvas. Van Gogh always painted alla prima and never worked with layers of color, and it is for this reason that his pictures were

27 See note 24. 28 "Van Gogh Prozess vor dem Ende," Berliner Tageblatt, 14 April

1932.

29 "Woher kommen die van Goghs?," Berliner Tageblatt, 8 April I932.

30 "Das Urteil gegen Wacker," Frankfurter Zeitung und Handels- blatt, 20 April 1932.

31 Stoperan, loc. cit. (note 26).

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never affected by craquelure. 4 All the forgeries are impure in color, they give a mud-

dy, botched impression, they have a tortured look, they lack freshness. The colors of the genuine works, by contrast, are always clear, they gleam and shine like precious stones. Van Gogh never painted with toned- down colors, a fact he even mentions in his letters. Because of this, and because he always painted his canvases in a single, uninterrupted flow, they have that wonderful enamel, that shine and that freshness which no forger can imitate."32

It is apparently easy to make a superficial copy of a work by van Gogh. It even seems that it is not too difficult to capture van Gogh's spirit in such forgeries, or what the beholder considers to be his spirit. Since he often painted the same subject more than once, the existence of a number of versions of a painting is not in itself cause for suspicion. What the forger invariably lacks, how- .ever, since he must make the copy sufficiently different to ensure its credibility, is a relationship with the sub- ject. For in the forgery one always finds passages which are incomprehensible, for the simple reason that the forger, in his turn, failed to comprehend the model.

That the Wacker paintings were forgeries seems to me today to be quite indisputable. However, whether they were all the work of a single individual or of the same date is a more difficult matter, since they have disappeared and can no longer be examined. If one as- sumes, though, that the forgeries were based on origi-

nals, one is left with the interesting question of where the latter were at the probable time of the forgery. It turns out that a large proportion of those originals were in the Cologne Sonderbund exhibition of 1912. The remainder were either in accessible German collections, or use was made of van Gogh's drawings, some of which even belonged to Wacker.

The three canvases which were not directly modeled on any existing work by van Gogh had come from Paris art dealers, and clearly considerably pre-dated the forg- eries which did have direct models.

Amedec Schuffenecker and his brother Emile, the painter, are suspected of at least having tampered with works by van Gogh. Consider F776, the version of Dau- bigny's garden in which the cat has been painted over.33 It was reproduced in a Paris auction catalogue of 24 March i900, and clearly contained a cat at the time. Both versions, F776 and F777, were in the possession of Amedee Schuffenecker, and the cat then vanished from F776.

The first documented forgeries or erroneous attribu- tions are two Arles landscapes which Julien Leclercq removed from the van Gogh exhibition at Bernheim- Jeune in i90i. They belonged to Theodore Duret and were described in Meier-Graefe's Entwicklungsge- schichte der modernen Kunst as "two curious land- scapes."34 In the exhibition catalogue, which he dedi- cated to Johanna van Gogh, Julien Leclercq crossed out numbers 56 and 57 and added the explanation: "With- drawn from the exhibition as not being by Vincent. Ini-

32 Ibid.: "Die i6 im Kronprinzenpalais vereinigten Bilder haben bei mir, der ich mich seit I9OI mit van Gogh beschaftigt und etwa I2 Ausstellungen seiner Werke zusammengestellt und gehangt habe, keinen Zweifel daruber gelassen, dass es sich um absichtliche Fal- schungen handelt. Urn Bilder, die in der bestimmten Absicht herge- stellt sind, den Anschein echter van Gogh's zu erwecken und als eigen- handige Arbeiten von van Gogh in den Handel gebracht zu werden. Aber nicht nur kunstlerische Gruinde, die fur den Kenner massgeblich sind, sprechen fur die Unechtheit dieser Bilder. Es gibt zwischen den echten van Goghs und diesen Falschungen auch Unterschiede, die jeder Laie sehen kann. I Jedes echte Bild von van Gogh aus seiner Zeit wahrend oder nach dem Pariser Aufenthalt ist auf der typischen franzosischen Mallein- wand gemalt. Die Falschungen sind auf andere, nicht auf franzo- sische Leinwand gemalt.

2 Auf den meisten Falschungen sind kleine Abdrucke von Leinwand sichtbar, die den Eindruck hervorrufen sollen, als ob frisch gemalte noch feuchte Bilder aufeinandergelegt gewesen seien. Ware das der Fall gewesen, so mussten sich die Abdrucke uber die ganze Bild- flache erstrecken, nicht nur auf einzelne Stellen beschranken. Bei

echten Arbeiten von van Gogh findet man Abdrucke dieser Art nicht.

3 Bei allen falschen Bildern zeigt die Farbe kieine Sprunge, soge- nannte Craqueluren, diese findet man bei keinem echten van Gogh. Hochstens weisen einige echte Arbeiten gerade, langere Bruche der Farbe auf, die durch das Aufrollen dieser Bilder entstanden sind. Van Gogh hat immer al prima gemalt und nie verschiedene Farben ubereinandergesetzt, deshalb sind seine Bilder auch nicht craque- liert.

4 Alle Falschungen sind unrein in der Farbe, sie machen einen triiben, vermanschten Eindruck, man merkt ihnen das Verqualte an, sie haben keine Frische. Die echten Bilder sind stets von klarer Farbe, sie glanzen und leuchten wie Edelsteine. Van Gogh hat stets mit ungebrochenen Farben gemalt, wie er ja auch in seinen Briefen schreibt; dadurch und weil er seine Bilder stets in einem Guss flott heruntergemalt hat, haben sie das wundervolle Email, den Glanz und die Frische, die ihm kein Falscher nachmachen kann." 33 De la Faille, op. cit. (note i8), p. 520. 34 Julius Meier-Graefe, Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen

Kunst, Stuttgart 1904, p. 120: "zwei merkwurdige Landschaften."

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300 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

tially included by me sight unseen."35 De la Faille speaks in his Les faux van Gogh of Theo-

dore Duret. The latter's book on van Gogh, larded with forgeries and erroneous attributions, and published by Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in i 9i6, makes quite astonish- ing reading today. It even mentions M. Proux, the As- nieres collector, who possessed several dozen fake van Goghs.36

Many of the works wrongly attributed to van Gogh are listed in the I928, 1939 and sadly even the 1970 edition of de la Faille's catalogue raisonni. Of the Wacker pictures the most recent edition lists the Two poplars on a road through the hills (F639) with reservations, that is to say accepted as genuine by de la Faille and W.J. de Gruyter, and rejected by J. G. van Gelder, A. W. Ham- macher, J. Hulsker and H. Gerson, whereas The fields (F812), rejected by de la Faille, is listed as genuine.

The Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh was the first to make the praiseworthy attempt to eliminate false attri- butions from van Gogh's oeuvre. The i987 museum ca- talogue disallows four works previously classed as gen- uine.37 Unfortunately, the Kroller-Muller Museum's i980 inventory catalogue has undiscriminatingly adopted all the works listed in the 1970 edition of de la Faille, though most of the dubious works are at present in storage.38

It should be possible, with the aid of the sales records and other documents belonging to the van Gogh family, Andries Bonger's i89i inventory, the Cassirer account books, and documents from the Vollard estate and the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, to establish the early prove- nance of the paintings, and thus their authenticity. In the case of works which suddenly and inexplicably sur- faced, after a matter of decades, on the Paris or Berlin art

market, it must be possible, by subjecting them to close scrutiny and to the latest scientific tests, to determine whether they are genuine or fake.

Grete Ring concluded her excellent essay on the Wacker case with similar thoughts. "Technical methods of examination are welcome when their role-as in this case-is confined to that of an auxiliary science. Prece- dence must always be given to intuitive, subjective hu- man perception, aided and checked as it fortunately can be by technological means. The final and most certain hallmark of a forgery is that, once unmasked, it is imme- diately reduced to nothingness."39

The last word, however, should go to Mr van Gogh, the artist's nephew, who left his mark on the reception history of van Gogh, first together with de la Faille, then with Jan Hulsker. "Despite the incontrovertible proofs which I had in my possession, I ran up against an im- penetrable wall which had been erected by rich and powerful people, in whose interest it was to prevent all secrets from being revealed."40

Our generation is no longer able to unveil those se- crets. We shall, however, using de la Faille as a basis, compile a catalogue raisonne' of Vincent van Gogh's work which, with the aid of information now at our disposal on the origins of the pictures, and utilising the possibili- ties for dating the works provided by his letters, will present an analysis of the artist's oeuvre. This may re- duce the myth surrounding the man, but for the first time it will do justice to the reality of van Gogh's genius, his development, his sense of color and his artistic inten- tions and aspirations.

ZURICH

SW I TZER LAND

35 Julien Leclercq, exhib. cat. Van Gogh, Paris (Galerie Bernheim- Jeune) i9oi, handwritten annotation, library of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh (Vincent van Gogh Foundation), Amsterdam: "Supprimes de l'Exposition comme n'6tant pas de Vincent. Je les avais ajout6 d'abord sans les voir."

36 De la Faille, op. cit. (note 2), p. i6. 37 Evert van Uitert and Michael Hoyle (eds.), The Ryksmuseum

Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam i987, p. 365 (rejected works: F21sb, F2I5C, F2I5d, F233)-

38 See A detailed catalogue of the paintings and drawings in the collec- tion of the Kroller-Miiller National Museum, Otterlo i980.

39 Ring, op. cit. (note 9), p. i65: "Die technischen Prufungsmetho-

den sind uns willkommen, wenn sie, wie im vorliegenden Falle, als Hilfswissenschaften auftreten; primar bleiben muss die intuitive, sub- jektive menschliche Erkenntnis, die von den Ergebnissen der Technik glucklich gestutzt und kontrolliert werden kann. Es ist das letzte und sicherste Kriterium einer Falschung, dass sie, einmal durchschaut, sogleich zum nichts herabsinkt."

40 "Chronik: die falschen van Gogh Bilder," Kunst und Kunstler 28 (1930), p. 262: "Trotz unanfechtbarer Beweise, die ich in den Handen hielt, stiess ich auf eine undurchdringliche Mauer, die von reichen und machtigen Leuten errichtet war, in deren Interesse es war, nicht alle Geheimnisse erschliessen zu lassen."

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301

Catalogue of the 33 paintings put into circulation by Otto Wacker, Berlin

Abbreviations Prov.: Provenance as given in de la Faille, or from

correspondence between owners of Wacker paintings and the Nationalgalerie in Berlin be- tween I928 and 1932 (library of the National- galerie, East Berlin)

Lit.: F J.-B. de la Faille, L'Oeuvre de Vincent van Gogh: catalogue raisonni, Paris (G. van Oest) I928

FF J.-B. de la Faille, Les Faux Van Gogh, Paris (G. van Oest) I930

H J.-B. de la Faille, Vincent van Gogh, Paris (Hyperion) I939

FM B. de la Faille, The works of Vincent van Gogh: his paintings and drawings, Amsterdam I970

BdlF Baart de la Faille HPB H.P. Bremmer JMG Julius Meier-Graefe HR Hans Rosenhagen

Cologne Sonderbund exhibition, May-September I9I2

A. Three paintings, not directly derived from a van Gogh original, which first appeared on the Paris art market

Still life: vase with daisies and poppies Prov.: Wacker; Eisenloeffel Art Gallery Lit.: F325; FF pI. xxv, fig. 86

2

The little garden Prov.: E. Blot (I9I2); Wacker; Julius Schmits (I925) Lit.: F442; FF pl. XXX I I I, fig. I I 7

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302 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

-~~~~~!_ -

3 Still life: asters Prov.: E. Blot; von der Heydt, Wuppertal Lit.: F590; FF pI. XXVI, fig. 88

B. Three famous self-portraits were used for the following copies

4 Self-portrait Copied from F476 in the Hugo von Tschudi Collection; after i919, Neue Staatsgalerie, Munich Prov.: Wacker; Matthiesen; M. Silberberg, Breslau;

Matthiesen Lit.: F385; FF pI. I, fig. I; H8I2

BdlF: I932: forgery; I939: genuine HPB: genuine

F476

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5 Self-portrait (signed Vincent) Copied from F522 in the V.W. van Gogh Collection, Laren; exhibited I914 at Cassirer's, Berlin Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls; Sir R. Abdy, Paris;

Thannhauser (1927)

Lit.: F52I; FF pl. III, fig. I2

F 522

6 Self-portrait with bandaged ear Copied from F529 in the Fayet Collection, Moussan (Aude) Prov.: Wacker Lit.: F527bis; FF pI. Xv, fig. 52

F 529

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304 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

C. Eight paintings were copied from originals shown at the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne in i9i2, of which large photographs could be bought at the time

F 626

7 Self-portrait Copied from F626 in the Tutein Nolthenius Collection, Delft; Cologne nr. 86, fig. 13 Prov.: Wacker; Chester Dale, Washington Lit.: F523; FF pI. I V, fig. 14; H8 I 3 BdlF: press release Berlin, io April I932: genuine;

1939: genuine HPB: genuine, one of the artist's most beautiful por-

traits

F 386 8 Still life with breadrolls (signed Vincent) Copied from F386 in the A. Flechtheim Collection, Dus- seldorf; Cologne nr. 3 I Prov.: Wacker; Thannhauser (I928); Matthiesen Lit.: F387; FF pI. 1i, fig. 5 HPB: forgery

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F 638 9 Two poplars on a road through the hills Copied from F638 in the A. Flechtheim Collection, Diis- seldorf; Cologne nr. 40 Prov.: Wacker; Huinck & Scherjon, Amsterdam Lit.: F639; FF pl. VIII, fig. 26; H817; FM639 BdlF: press release Berlin, io April I932: genuine;

1939: genuine HPB: genuine JMG: genuine HR: genuine

IO

The sower Copied from F689 in the Mrs Kroller-Muller Collec- tion, Otterlo; Cologne nr. 72 Prov.: Osthaus (incorrect); Wacker; Matthiesen Lit.: F69I; FF pl. IX, fig. 30 HPB: forgery

F 689

305

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306 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

7; .

l -7 W7"N

F 735 I I

Rising moon: haycocks Copied from F735 in the Mrs Kroller-Muller Collec- tion, Otterlo; Cologne nr. ioo Prov.: B. Wacker, Paris; H.P. Bremmer (1930)

Lit.: F625bis; FF pI. XII, fig. 42; H630 BdlF: press release Berlin, io April 1932: genuine;

I939: genuine HPB: genuine

at -

/V4

I

I2

Rising moon: haycocks Copied from F735 in the Mrs Kroller-Muller Collec- tion, Otterlo; Cologne nr. ioo Prov.: Wacker Lit.: F736; FF pI. XII, fig. VI; H8I5

BdlF: press release Berlin, io April I932: genuine; I939: genuine

HPB: genuine

I3 The wheatfield Copied from F807 in the Curt Herrmann Collection, Berlin; Cologne nr. 42 Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls; Otto Krebs, Holzdorf;

Hugo Perls Lit.: F823; FF pI. XIV, fig. 49

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F 807 I4 Landscape Copied from F807 in the Curt Herrmann Collection, Berlin; Cologne nr. 42 Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls Lit.: F824; FF pl. XIV, fig. 51 HPB: genuine

D. Ten paintings were copied from originals in German collections to which Wacker might have had access

F424

15 The Zouave Copied from F424 in the A. Flechtheim Collection, Diis- seldorf Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls; Otto Krebs, Holzdorf;

Hugo Perls Lit.: F539; FF pl. V, fig. 16

307

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WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

The Zouave Copied from F424 in the A. Flechtheim Collection, Diis- seldorf Prov.: Wacker; Ozmella, Mannheim (incorrect) Lit.: F539bis; FF pl. V, fig. 17

F682

I7 Still life: roses Copied from F682 in the Mrs Oppenheim Collection, Berlin Prov.: Wacker Lit.: F68ibis; FF pl. XVI, fig. 57

308

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Sb

F 684 i8 Peasant with hay-fork Copied from F684 in the J.S. Goldschmidt Collection, Frankfurt Prov.: Wacker (1928)

Lit.: F685; FF pI. Ix, fig. 28 HPB: forgery

Oar-~~~~~~~~~4

F7IO

I9

Olive trees Copied from F7 IO in the Mrs Margarete Mauthner Col- lection, Berlin Prov.: Wacker; J. S. Goldschmidt; Mrs Morgan,

New York Lit.: F7Iobis; FF pI. X, fig. 35

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31O WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

-E 20

Olive trees Copied from F7 IO in the Mrs Margarete Mauthner Col- lection, Berlin Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls; Commeter; M. Gilde-

meister, Hamburg Lit.: F713; FF pI. X, fig. 34 HPB: forgery

4 .

21

Olive trees Copied from F7 IO in the Mrs Margarete Mauthner Col- lection, Berlin Prov.: Wacker Lit.: F7I5bis; FF pI. X, fig. 37

I!M

I..N c

'L,_ ./''

F 7I7

22

Landscape at sunrise Copied from F717 in the Francesco von Mendelssohn Collection, Berlin Prov.: Kuenze, Berlin; Wacker; Matthiesen Lit.: F729; FF pI. XI, fig. 38

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F78I 23

The fields Copied from F78 in the Harry Graf Kessler Collection, Berlin Prov.: Wacker; Lutz; Hodebert, Paris (1928) Lit.: F8I2; FF pi. XIII, fig. 46; FM78I BdlF: forgery FM 1970: genuine

24

Thefields Copied from F78I in the Harry Graf Kessler Collection, Berlin Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls (I928); Stern, Neuba-

belsberg Lit.: F8I3; FF pl. XIII, fig. 47 HPB: forgery

3II

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312 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

E. Nine paintings composed after genuine draw- ings by Van Gogh to which Wacker had access

I/

F 1430 25

Boats at Saintes-Maries Copied from FI430 in the 0. Wacker Collection, now Nationalgalerie, East Berlin Prov.: Wacker Lit.: F4I8biS; FF pI. XVI, fig. 55

Ar w 1.r ' .v .

1 vL ::,,, I 3s F I431 26

The sea at Saintes-Maries Copied from FI431 in the 0. Wacker Collection Prov.: Wacker; d'Audretsch (I928-29); Kroller-

Muller (I929)

Lit.: F408; FF pI. II, fig. 7; H8I4

Exhibited Berlin 1927, Wacker Gallery, Van Gogh Zeichnungen, nr. I05 BdlF: press release Berlin, io April I932: genuine;

1939: genuine HPB: genuine

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Van Gogh fakes: the Wacker affair 313

/~~~ltrr%

F I435 27

Mas at Saintes-Maries Copied from F1435 in the Marcel Goldschmidt Collec- tion; Thannhauser Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls; Fritz Roeder, Berlin;

Thannhauser; M. Gildemeister, Hamburg (I928)

Lit.: F42I; FF pI. III, fig. 9 HPB: forgery

st;. t<

4

F I442

28 The sower Copied from F1442 in the Thannhauser Collection, Munich and Berlin Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls Lit.: F705; FF pI. Ix, fig. 32 HPB: forgery

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3I4 WALTER FEILCHENFELDT

7 .:. . t,.I .,I

l., I

F 1456 29

The garden Copied from FI456 in the Angela von Tschudi Collec- tion, Munich Prov.: Wacker Lit.: F577; FF pI. V, fig. I9

ori

J'

F 1525

30 The cypresses Copied from FI525 in the Thannhauser Collection, Munich and Berlin Prov.: Wacker; Thannhauser; Matthiesen Lit.: F614; FF pI. VI, fig. 2I; H8I6 BdlF: I932: forgery; I939: genuine HPB: genuine

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3I The cypresses Copied from FI525 in the Thannhauser Collection, Munich and Berlin Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls; E. Wolff, Hamburg

(1928) Lit.: F6i6; FF pl. VII, fig. 24 HPB: forgery

FI540

32 The cypresses Copied from FI 540 in the A.W. Heymel Collection, Bre- men Prov.: Wacker; Hugo Perls (1928); Alexander Lewin,

Guben Lit.: F74I; FF pl. XIII, fig. 44

3I5

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33 The cypresses Copied from FI524 in the Otto Wacker Collection, Ber- lin Prov.: Wacker Lit.: F74Ibis; FF pl. xvII, fig. 60

FI524

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