Jacob Baart-de la Faille (1 June 1886, Leeuwarden — 1959) compiled the first catalogue raisonné of the work of Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...

, published in 1928. In the same year he was involved in the big fraud affair concerning the Berlin art dealer Otto Wacker

Otto Wacker

Otto Wacker was a German art dealer who became famous for commissioning and selling forgeries of paintings by Vincent van Gogh.Otto Wacker became an art dealer in 1925 after various false starts in other professions. He developed a reputation for reliability in the art field...

, as De la Faille had certified the authenticity

Authenticity in art

Authenticity in art has a variety of meanings related to different ways in which a work of art or an artistic performance may be considered authentic.Denis Dutton distinguishes between nominal authenticity and expressive authenticity....

 of 30 paintings which turned out to be fakes.

Biography

Jacob Baart-de la Faille was born to a Dutch father, Cornelis Baart de la Faille, and a Belgian mother, Henriette Adriana Krayenhoff.
At the University of Utrecht he majored in law, not in art.

Writings

J.-B. de La Faille (!): L'Epoque française de Van Gogh, MM. Bernheim-Jeune, éditeurs d'art, Paris ("acheve d'imprimer le 25 aout 1927")

J.-B. de la Faille: L'Œuvre de Vincent van Gogh, Catalogue raisonné, ouvrage accompagné de la réproduction de plus de 1.600 tableaux, dessins, aquarelles et gravures du Maître. 6 vols. Les Éditions G. van Oest, Paris & Bruxelles, 1928

2nd edition, revising the catalogue of paintings only, Hyperion, Paris 1937 (comprising editions in English, French, and German)

3rd edition, edited since 1961 by a committee initially including J. G. van Gelder, W. Jos de Gruyter, A. M. Hammacher (chairman), Jan Hulsker

Jan Hulsker

Jan Hulsker studied Dutch literature in Leiden and was promoted with a thesis on the author Aart van der Leeuw....

and H. Gerson, in 1962 joined by Annet Tellegen-Hoogendoorn, later by Martha Op de Coul and, due to time passing, by others

J.-B. de la Faille: Les faux Van Gogh, avec 176 réproductions. Les Éditions G. van Oest, Paris & Bruxelles, 1930