A Masterpiece of Revenge (15 page)

The sale was beginning.

To dignify — and benefit from — the sale of a Claude Lorrain, and to attract buyers of the highest quality and deepest pockets, Sotheby's had planned on selling thirty or so paintings at this auction. Each was a work of considerable value. Some of them were of exceptional quality.

Following well-established tradition, there was a slight delay before the first painting went up for auction. This gave time for the late-arriving VIPs to make their way to their reserved seats.

The work in question was
Virgin and Child Surrounded by Saint Jerome and Saint Sebastian
. It was an altarpiece, painted sometime around 1500 by Pietro Di Domenico of Sienna. That, at least, was the opinion of Sotheby's, as indicated by the asterisk preceding the name. A note at the bottom of the catalog page sent readers to the glossary, where the auction house carefully defined the difference between a work done by the artist — whose name was in large print — and the paintings “attributed” to the painter, either by his “workshop” or “school,” or “after the manner of” or “in the style of.”

Despite these subtleties, it was a superb work. The bidding quickly mounted to $118,000, nearly double what had been predicted.

This boded well for the next work, a still life by Versailles great decorator Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer. The set at the front of the room turned, and as if by magic the Madonna altarpiece disappeared, replaced by a picture of an enormous and overflowing vase of multicolored roses, lilies, and wild flowers.

The painting was projected to go at between $80,000 and $120,000. Bidding started at $60,000. Two or three hands went up. The price leapt quickly by increments of $10,000. When it reached $130,000 only two bidders remained. One, a well-known French dealer, offered $140,000. Her competitor shook his head.

The auctioneer scanned the crowd for a few seconds, and then brought down the hammer. Sold.

That painting disappeared and in its place appeared a work of even greater quality: a view of the port of Recife, painted in 1649 by the Dutch artist Franz Jansz Post, who had accompanied Count Johan Maurits Nassau-Siegen to Brazil. Few documents of this expedition survived and most of Post's works were in museums. The Louvre owned four.

The painting was valued between $300,000 and $500,000. A Dutch collector, determined that Post's painting should stay in its home country, bid the higher amount and got it.

A Brazilian museum, however, got its revenge a few minutes later by offering $684,000 for a panoramic view of the same port of Recife, painted in 1647 by Gillis Peeters, an artist who had gone with Count Naussau-Siegen on his quixotic trip to establish a Dutch realm in northern Brazil.

Sotheby's displayed consummate skill at varying the paintings up for auction, and at stimulating the interest of the buyers.

Some of the works failed to reach their minimum price and were taken out of auction. Others doubled or even tripled their estimated worth. A large portrait of Countess Czernin, painted in 1793 by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun during her exile in Vienna, did not reach its estimated worth of $500,000. Neither did two views of Venice's Grand Canal by Bernardo Bellotto.

But Esteban Murillo's portrait of a man in a large black hat, which had been valued between $70,000 and $90,000, went for $270,000.

The auction moved along rapidly, the lots becoming more and more significant. Tension grew. What was of interest was not the esthetic value of the paintings, but the prices they were fetching.

Would a portrait of Madame Boudrey by Jean-Marc Nattier, picturing the young woman as a muse, go for $700,000, as had been predicted? How much would the El Greco that followed it sell for? The painting was a superb crucifixion scene, dating from the end of the sixteenth or early years of the seventeenth century, when the artist was at the height of his powers. In the work, night has fallen on Golgotha, but the luminous skies behind Christ show his triumph over death.

No major El Greco work had gone up for auction in years. A conservative estimate of the painting's value was between $600,000 and $800,000. There was an opening bid of $700,000. Immediately three or four round signs in black plastic, bearing in white the number of a client, went up.

“On my left, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In the middle, eight hundred thousand. In the back, nine hundred thousand dollars.”

On the screen, conversion figures whirled, indicating what these amounts meant in francs, marks, and pounds.

When the bidding exceeded $1 million — and showed no sign of slowing — everyone in the room held his breath. Two Japanese buyers and a French dealer, acting on behalf of an unnamed client, were going up against an American, the director of a well-known West Coast museum.

On the phones were German, Swiss, and Italian bidders as well as one from Hong Kong.

At $2 million, only the French dealer and the Chinese bidder remained. With each figure, the assistant on the phone repeated what was bid.

“Will you follow?” she asked.

The French dealer, who was in the room, was beginning to sweat. Finally he threw in the towel. The auctioneer turned to the assistant and instructed her to tell her client that his bid stood. The room went silent.

“Any advance on two million two hundred thousand dollars? Fair Warning.”

The expression of Christ on the cross, his eyes turned away in agony and revulsion, might to some have symbolized his horror at being sold to the money lenders in the temple. But nobody attended the irony.

The hammer went down and the spell was broken. The audience burst into applause.

It was now the turn of
The Port of Naples
, by Claude Lorrain.

At most auctions, the lead piece is displayed in the room from the very beginning, as a way of inspiring bidders. This time was different. The stage turned. A pedestal appeared. The audience gasped.

There was nothing on it.

Immediately it was assumed that Sotheby's was deliberately delaying the appearance of the painting to heighten drama. After all, the works already auctioned off were worth a fraction of this newly discovered Lorrain.

The catalog indicated that the painting was estimated to be worth between $60 and $70 million, but this truly astronomical sum intimidated no one. All the world's museums and all the biggest collectors who did not yet own a Lorrain were going to fight for it with all their resources. The rumor was that
The Port of Naples
might surpass the $75 million hammer price set by van Gogh's
Portrait of Doctor Gachet
.

The tension in the room was palpable. Would the bidding go higher?

After a pause of several minutes, the sales director descended from his pulpit. An older and even more distinguished-looking gentleman took his place. This was Sir John Howard, president and chief executive officer of Sotheby's New York.

Looking formidably dignified in his Savile Row suit, Sir Howard announced in a calm voice that due to reasons entirely beyond Sotheby's control
The Port of Naples
by Claude Gellée, known as Claude Lorrain, would not be put up for sale.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the auction is at an end,” he concluded.

He then climbed down from the podium and left the room.

Absolute silence reigned for nearly ten seconds, after which there was a clearing of throats, a rustling of clothing — and then an explosion of conversation. Journalists ran for the door, people clambered across rows to confer with friends and colleagues. There were loud exclamations of surprise and dismay and disappointment of the sort never before heard in a Sotheby's auction house.

Vermeille focused his gaze on Jane Caldwell, who sat perfectly still. Quentin Van Nieuwpoort got up in a bound, as if stung by a bee, and walked briskly down the aisle.

A quarter of an hour passed. The room emptied out.

Vermeille never took his eyes off Caldwell. She didn't return the look. She looked like a prisoner on whom judgment has been passed.

Leonardo da Vinci used to follow prisoners condemned to death, to watch and record their expressions of suffering and terror. Vermeille continued to stare at Caldwell's face. She was rigid, except her chin. Just perceptibly, it was trembling.

When Van Nieuwpoort returned he whispered something in her ear. She rose to her feet, then sank back slowly into her chair. For the first time, she met Vermeille's gaze, and he could see rage and defiance in her eyes. She was, he had to admit, more beautiful than ever. He forced his expression to remain neutral. For Vermeille, nonetheless, it was a moment of triumph for which he had been waiting for two months.

Should Caldwell have expected something like this of Vermeille? She knew him better than almost anyone. But she had missed his capacity for empathy, without which all other psychological insight is useless. She had perhaps also underestimated his passion for justice, and to what lengths he would go to even the accounts.

Vermeille guessed what Van Nieuwpoort was saying to Caldwell. He was telling her that when the painting had been removed from its protective casing the evening before the auction, it had disintegrated. Right in front of all the Sotheby's officials. Within seconds, it had begun to crack and blister, until it had turned entirely to ash.

Vermeille also guessed what happened next. Horrified by the spectacle, Sotheby's officials immediately went into a closed-door meeting. Rather than announce what had happened — particularly since they didn't yet know why it had happened —- they decided to proceed with the auction the following day, as planned. They were determined to let the other works up for auction benefit from the enormous publicity given the Lorrain. Were news to leak out it would have had a dampening effect on the spirits of the bidders.

Vermeille kept his gaze on Caldwell's profile, watching its rigidity slowly dissolve. He could only imagine what had gone into making that painting — the research, the materials, the time. Finding some unknown genius to paint it. Making that perfect a copy was nearly a miracle.

She had proven true Jean Cocteau's aphorism, “To make a successful fake is to make the real thing.”

Vermeille could imagine her stupefaction, her rage, her confusion, her desperate need to understand what had happened. How could something that had taken so long simply go up in smoke? How had Vermeille succeeded in finding out the identify of his persecutor? What was his part in all this?

With a schadenfreude worthy of his colleague Adalbert, Vermeille imagined Caldwell's feelings. After the rage would come denial, then acceptance. Then agony. That painting had been perfect! Perfect! Vermeille must have known. Vermeille could never have admitted he had authenticated a fake Lorrain. Doing that would have destroyed him. Yet what could he prove? That someone had sent him photographs? Nobody was actually threatened. She needed to talk to someone, yet the only person she could confide in was Van Nieuwpoort. And he was the last person she could confide in.

Quentin Van Nieuwpoort was still talking to her. Vermeille knew he was trying to console her. She was to be congratulated for the picture's having been estimated at the value it was. Sotheby's was willing to seek only restitution for its costs, instead of insisting upon its 20 percent commission, and that would put another fifteen million dollars into their offshore company.

Vermeille imagined this conversation by interpreting Van Nieuwpoort's comforting demeanor and Caldwell's profile. Some color was returning to her cheeks.

That meant she had not yet grasped what was to come. She was still thinking that, yes, the painting was lost but at least they would get the insurance money — enough to live very comfortably for the rest of their lives. She could pay off her debts. The cost of doing the Lorrain copy must have been enormous.

Was she beginning to suspect that he was behind this? Some instinct might have begun to whisper in her ear, but it was only instinct. How could she have guessed that a tweedy French professor of art history would be versed in chemistry — enough at least to concoct and then apply a transparent layer of phosphorus contained within carbon sulfite, such that it would combust in air only after several days of exposure ?

Vermeille had spread this invisible film on the back of the painting before giving it back to the Sotheby's representatives, who then took it to Oxford for packaging. The Lorrain, as per his suggestion, had been immediately put into a case containing an inert gas. By Jane Caldwell.

The painting was a sort of time bomb.

While the work was on tour, Vermeille had trembled at the thought that some accident might set it off before its time. Anything could have gone wrong.

But everything went just right.

Their eyes met again. Her expression revealed confusion— but also dawning realization. That he might be responsible for this disaster was working its way into her consciousness. He saw her expression harden. He thought he could see something dangerous growing in her eyes.

Neither Sotheby's nor the insurers had any reason to suspect Vermeille. Why would they accuse someone who had just verified a painting's authenticity of then destroying it? The notion was preposterous.

Who would they suspect? The last person to have touched the Lorrain before it was sealed in its case. Analysis of the painting's remains by a broker specializing in insuring works of art would doubtless determine the cause of the auto-da-fé. Who, apart from Jane Caldwell, had the knowledge and opportunity to do such a thing? She was famous for her pioneering work in protecting works of art in controlled environments.

And when some anonymous source sent the insurance company an illegal but damning photocopy, providing the names and principals of certain offshore companies, they would learn that Jane Caldwell was also co-owner of the lost masterpiece.

The conclusion would be that she had motive as well as means: she had preferred the insurance money, which was tax-free, to what she might or might not have gotten from the sale of the work at auction — an amount from which Sotheby's would deduct its commission.