The Art Forger and the Pope

Alice, I wanted to ask you for your thoughts on one of my favorite cautionary tales which loyal listeners will know all about. This was an occasion in the 1930s where a great art critic Abraham Bradyus was persuaded to authenticate this newly discovered work as a Vermeer. The whole thing turned out to be a rotten fraud perpetrated by a really repulsive character called Han Van Meigren and yet a lot of people believed it. Alice: There's a huge effect in the success of any forgery, art forgery or any other sort if it taps into something that people want and some deep desire so we should look again at what is going on there.