The False Master

Amsterdam, June 1945, one month after liberation. The Van Hoorn Museum has just paid 1.6 million guildersguilder The former currency of the Netherlands, used until the euro replaced it. for "The Pilgrims' Supper", a Vaelkens lost for three centuries.

The country's greatest critics called the painting a masterpiece. But the museum's restorer, cleaning one corner of the canvas, felt that the paint did not behave like old paint.

The painting came through a dealer in the city, who says he bought it from an Italian family ruined by the war. No one has seen this family. No paperwork came with the sale.

Three people handled this painting before it reached the museum wall. One of them painted it.

An Amsterdam police interrogation room, with a painting under a cloth on an easel.