Hans van Meegeren, art-forgerist, while awaiting trial in an Amsterdam jail (for collaboration with the Nazis), was painting another Vermeer.

When one Hans van Meegeren, a little-known Dutch Nazi painter, owned to forging seven recently “discovered” Vermeers (TIME, July 30), art experts laughed him off as a nut. They had reason to: the masterpieces had been painstakingly authenticated by them, by chemical, X-ray and infra-red tests.

Last week, while awaiting …