thumb|Jef Van der Veken restoring a [[Quentin Matsys|Matsys work from the Renders collection]]
Josephus Maria Van der Veken (also spelled Vander Veken; 1872 – 1964) was a Belgian art restorer, copyist, and art forger who mastered the art of reproducing the works of early Netherlandish painters.
Early life
Jef Van der Veken was born in Antwerp, where his parents operated a crystal and porcelain ware business. From a young age, Van der Veken nourished artistic ambitions. While performing his compulsory military service, he attended drawing classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Here he learned the art of painting by copying photographs and making free adaptations of the old masters. He completed his academic training at the top of his class. Van der Veken then started to make pastiches on order and established himself as an antique dealer in Brussels in 1908. He became so skilled in mimicking the style of the old masters that his works were taken for originals and some were even sold as such. For instance, at the 1927 London exhibition on Flemish and Belgian Art between 1300 and 1900 a work by his hand was exhibited as an original old master. Van der Veken had to convince the organizers to remove the painting that he had made on the basis of a badly damaged original, provoking a scandal.
The start of World War I marked a change in his professional and artistic career as Van der Veken shifted his interest to restoration work and perfected his own restoration process, the "hyperrestauration". This process consisted in the recovery of an old, damaged or modest work, which served as the support for a new creation. He was passionate about the Flemish Primitives, particularly Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck, and prided himself on having rediscovered the technique of painting with eggs which according to him had been used by early Netherlandish painters. It has been demonstrated since that the basis of the technique of early Netherlandish painters was not the use of eggs but the use of oil-based paint.
Recognition as restorer
Van der Veken's reputation as a restorer was such that internationally renowned art historians Leo van Puyvelde and Georges Hulin de Loo recommended him to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. He worked there for many years as a restorer using methods of restoration that were less controversial and more in line with contemporary ideas and insights in the field of restoration. He was soon recognized as a renowned expert and was invited to take on the restoration of the finest panels of Hans Memling held by the Old St. John's Hospital and the Groeningemuseum in Bruges. Van der Veken considered his restoration of Jan van Eyck's Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele in 1934 as his most honorable commission.
Legacy
Van der Veken continued to work for the Central Laboratory of the Museums of Belgium after the Second World War. Despite the onset of blindness he remained active until the end of his life, and his son-in-law, Albert Philippot, who had been trained by Van der Veken, gradually took over his restoration tasks. It is Albert Philippot who commenced the restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece in 1950. Van der Veken died in Ixelles in 1964.
Controversies surrounding the Renders Collection
While during the Second World War, Van der Veken continued his restoration work for the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Renders took the opportunity to sell the 20 early Netherlandish paintings in the Renders Collection, including the hyperrestored works on which Van der Veken had worked, to the German Nazi leader Hermann Goering for the price of 300 kilograms of gold. The diptych was probably separated in 1867, the year in which the portrait of Jean Gros was shown at an exhibition in Bruges, organized by the historian James Weale. It was probably the deplorable material condition of the Madonna which led to the decision to separate the two panels of the diptych. A German photo from World War I shows the battered state of the panel at that time.
Conclusion
The conclusion of the recent scientific findings is that both Van der Veken and Renders appear to have engaged in intentional art forgery. Since these revelations, all the works that had belonged to the Renders Collection or had been handled by Van der Veken and even his son-in-law Albert Philippot, many of which hang in major museums in Belgium and abroad, are viewed with suspicion.