Frank Wynne tells the extraordinary story of Han van Meegeren, the Dutch artist whose ‘Vermeer' made him a folk hero I've always loved a forger. It's difficult not to feel a surge of joy at the thought of an eminent critic waxing lyrical over the glories of a "17th-century masterpiece" on which the paint is barely dry. If the pinnacle of Western art is arguably Leonardo da Vinci, his shadow self in the pantheon of forgers is Han van Meegeren. In May 1945, shortly after the liberation of Holland, two officers arrived at the studio of van Meegeren, then just...