Iohan Quirijn van Regteren Altena

Born in Amsterdam, he was a son of Lucas van Regteren Altena (1865–1934) and his wife Charlotte Octavia Loman (1873–1963) - he had a number of sisters.

Back in the Netherlands, during the 1920s he assisted Frits Lugt who had been commissioned to compile a full catalogue of Flemish and Dutch paintings in the Louvre.

He then enrolled at the University of Utrecht, where he studied under Willem Vogelsang and in 1935 gained his doctorate with a dissertation on the drawings of Jacob de Gheyn II.

Another painting, Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet, also counted among Vermeer's works and rediscovered during the Second World War - he believed it to be a fake made between 1942 and 1943.

From 1952 to 1973, as curator of the Teyler Foundation in Haarlem, he produced two catalogues of its drawings, that were exhibited in 1970 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and in 1972 at the Louvre.