Meet “the Indiana Jones of the art world”
Stolen artworks vanish into a criminal netherworld. Arthur Brand recovers them
EVEN AS A child, Arthur Brand was fascinated by art and antiquities. His grandfather went to school with Han van Meegeren, a Dutch painter who forged a picture by Johannes Vermeer and sold it to Hermann Göring. His father had a passion for history and named his son after King Arthur, the mythical British ruler. In boyhood Mr Brand delighted in stories of knights and Vikings, of mummies and hidden troves of gold, silver and jewels. “The only book I read was ‘Treasure Island’,” he says.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Raider of the lost art”
From the June 26th 2021 edition
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