A few works that originally entered the Gallery’s collection as 17th-century Dutch paintings have been found to belong to other schools or periods. These works include The Lacemaker and The Smiling Girl, both of which were attributed to Johannes Vermeer when they entered the Gallery in 1937 as part of the original Andrew Mellon bequest but were subsequently determined to be 20th-century imitations.
For more information, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “The Story of Two Vermeer Forgeries,” in Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, eds. C. P. Schneider, W. W. Robinson and A. I. Davies (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 271–275.