Editing Han van Meegeren (section)

===Trial and prison sentence===
The trial of Han van Meegeren began on 29 October 1947 in Room 4 of the Regional Court in Amsterdam.<ref>{{harvnb|Godley|1951|pp=268–281}}</ref> The collaboration charges had been dropped, since the expert panel had found that the supposed Vermeer sold to Hermann Göring had been a forgery and was, therefore, not the cultural property of the Netherlands. Public prosecutor H. A. Wassenbergh brought charges of forgery and fraud and demanded a sentence of two years in prison.<ref name=Williams/>

[[File:Evidence against Han van Meegeren - pigments.jpg|thumb|250px|Evidence against Han van Meegeren: a collection of pigments.]]
The court commissioned an international group of experts to address the [[Authenticity in art|authenticity]] of van Meegeren's paintings. The commission included curators, professors, and doctors from the Netherlands, Belgium, and England, and was led by the director of the chemical laboratory at the [[Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium]], [[Paul B. Coremans]].<ref name=Williams/><ref name="Coremans">Coremans, Paul B. (1949). ''Van Meegeren's faked Vermeers and De Hooghs: a scientific examination''. Amsterdam: J. M. Meulenhoff. {{OCLC|2419638}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Schueller|1953|pp=18–19}}</ref> The commission examined the eight Vermeer and Frans Hals paintings which Van Meegeren had identified as forgeries. With the help of the commission, Dr. Coremans was able to determine the chemical composition of van Meegeren's paints.<ref>{{harvnb|Lopez|2008|p=215}}</ref>

He found that the paint contained the [[phenol formaldehyde resin|phenolformaldehyde resins]] [[Bakelite]] and Albertol as paint hardeners.<ref name=Williams/><ref name="Bailey253"/><ref>A.H. Huussen, Cahiers uit het Noorden, Zoetermeer 2009; the texts of the original experts report of 10 Jan. 1947 and that of the sentence of the Amsterdam district court 12 Nov 1947 were retrieved by prof. Huussen in 2009.</ref> A bottle had been found in van Meegeren's studio.<ref>Roth, Toni (1971). "Methods to determine identity and authenticity". ''The art and the beautiful home'' 83:81–85.</ref> As Bakelite was not discovered until the 20th century, this proved that the paintings could not be genuine.

The commission also suggested that the dust in the [[craquelure]] was too homogeneous to be of natural origin. It appeared to come from India ink, which had accumulated even in areas that natural dirt or dust would never have reached. The paint had become so hard that alcohol, strong acids, and bases did not attack the surface, a clear indication that the surface had not been formed in a natural manner. The craquelure on the surface did not always match that in the ground layer, which would certainly have been the case with a natural craquelure. Thus, the test results obtained by the commission appeared to confirm that the works were forgeries created by van Meegeren, but their authenticity continued to be debated by some of the experts until 1967 and 1977, when new investigative techniques were used to analyze the paintings (see below).{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}

On 12 November 1947, the Fourth Chamber of the Amsterdam Regional Court found Han van Meegeren guilty of forgery and fraud, and sentenced him to one year in prison.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=1947-11-24 |title=Art: Truth & Consequences |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,887772,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091223031454/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,887772,00.html |archive-date=2009-12-23 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|TIME]] |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="Williams" /> The trial was widely covered in the media, and van Meegeren became a folk hero.<ref name="Keats2013-262">{{harvnb|Keats|2013|p=262}}</ref>