Page 14 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW SPECIAL ISSUE 4

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 1 4

AN UNKNOWN SLOUGHI

BY ELS SIEBEL - THE NETHERLANDS

Greyhound, drawing, 1921/1922, Han van Meegeren

One of the few mentions of this drawing comes from Dr. Marijke van den Brandhof's 1979
dissertation on the life and works of Dutch painter Han van Meegeren. As is often the case
here, the more common name for a sighthound ‘Greyhound’ was used for the dog depicted.

Sighthound connoisseurs, however, recognise the breed of this dog as Sloughi or perhaps
Sloughi-Azawakh. But there were no specimens of the latter breed in the Netherlands and
France at the time while there was a decent Sloughi population in those countries.

We are talking about Henricus Antonius (Han) van Meegeren (born in Deventer, 10 October
1889 - died in Amsterdam, 30 December 1947). He was a Dutch painter and art forger. He
forged works by Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals, Ter Borch and Pieter de Hooch, among

others. He lived in the Netherlands from 1913 to 1932, in The Hague. He then moved to
France, where he stayed until 1938.

Van Meegeren painted in a style that had been popular centuries before. Although his work
was initially well received, he was subsequently ridiculed by art critics and at one point could
not even exhibit.