Authors: Ken Perenyi
Stalling for time, I pretended to study the cleaned area, but my mind was racing to come up with a way to handle this.
Dara broke the silence. “I was very careful,” she said. “I used a Q-tip and some acetone.” Then, as an afterthought directed toward Peter, she said: “Interesting, but the flyspecks dissolved as well.”
Peter just shrugged. I pretended not to hear, but my heart skipped a beat. I was taken aback by Dara's technical knowledge. Flyspecks are indeed insoluble. They have to be removed with a scalpel, one by one. Had I used epoxy glue and powder pigment to make the flyspecks, they would have stood up to the attack of acetone. However, having used up all my glue on the “welding job” and never imagining that they would be tested in this way, I gave in to the temptation to make flyspecks with the thickened linseed oil, out of sheer convenience. Unfortunately, the thickened oil breaks down, just as recently dried oil paint would, with acetone.
Still pretending to appreciate Dara's handiwork, I was in fact carefully studying the corner and assessing the damage. Indeed, a few of the flyspecks that had once resided in that corner were gone, along with the “antique” varnish, but the blue paint of the sky was still intact. The barrier coat of lacquer had done its jobâbut just barely. I could see the glossy surface of the lacquer, but right in the center of the cleaned area, I could also see a dry patch, a sure indication that the membrane was breaking down. Another second, and she would have been into the paint.
That, in combination with the anachronism of the dissolving flyspecks, would most likely have started a chain reaction of suspicion in Dara's mind.
Then, as I was studying the corner that Dara had cleaned, I got an idea. There was simply no way I could allow Dara to have Fat Boy cleaned. Instead, I thought of a ploy in which I could, without arousing suspicion, take control of the situation and perform the “cleaning” myself. It would be a risky gamble, but I had to do
something
.
“Maybe we could offer the picture with a test spot in the sky,” I said. It was not uncommon to see antique pictures offered in the salesrooms with a spot the size of a half dollar cleaned in a prominent area like the sky in a landscape painting. The purpose was to demonstrate the difference a cleaning would make to the prospective buyers. The practice was more commonly seen in London than New York.
“This way,” I continued, “we can show the buyers the true colors without a full cleaning.” Dara was unimpressed, but Peter agreed that it wasn't a bad idea. Seizing the moment, I pressed on before Dara could protest. “Do you have the acetone handy?” I asked her. “I'll try it myself,” I declared, confident that I could control the action of the solvent.
Dara called in her assistant and asked her to bring in the can of acetone. A couple of tense minutes passed. Dara began grousing about the idea of a test spot when the girl finally returned. “I can't find it,” she informed Dara, and then added, “but we have a can of mineral spirits.”
“No, no, no, keep looking,” Dara said. “I just had it the other day,” and then she directed the girl to a specific cabinet. Another minute passed, and the girl returned. “It is not there, only the mineral spirits,” she reported. Dara, exasperated, directed her to yet another cabinet.
Before the girl left, I stopped everything. “Wait, bring me the mineral spirits. That works just as well,” I said.
Dara dismissed my request, and told the girl to go look again. “Mineral spirits can't clean a painting,” Dara informed me once the girl had left.
“Oh, yes they can,” I good-naturedly said. “Jim and I used to clean small pictures with it all the time, and it worked.”
Dara wouldn't hear of it. In fact, Dara was for the most part right. Generally speaking, mineral spirits are too weak a solvent to break down old varnish, but on rare occasions they can.
What Dara didn't know was that mineral spirits would certainly clean
this
painting. The antique varnish I had dissolved from the surfaces of period paintings was diluted with acetone. Before it could be sprayed onto the surface of my painting, I'd had to give it some body or viscosity. This was accomplished by blending it with a clear synthetic varnish. The synthetic I chose was thinned with mineral spirits, and mineral spirits would easily dissolve my “antique varnish” after it had been applied and dried.
I tried again to correct Dara on this point, but she wouldn't concede. I was on a razor's edge. Again I was shocked by Dara's understanding of technical matters. The thought flashed through my mind that she already knew the painting was a fake and was just tormenting me. I wondered if I had at last met my match in her, when the door behind me opened. A long, slender arm extended over my shoulder and placed a can on the desk right beside Fat Boy.
In bold letters, I saw the words “Mineral Spirits” written across the front of the can. “I'm afraid we've looked everywhere, and this is all we can find,” the assistant said. Before Dara could say a word, I asked for some cotton and seized the can.
Careful not to demonstrate too much technical experience, I pretended to be the “amateur restorer” and explained as I opened the can that “I used to watch Jimmy do this all the time with mineral spirits. It just takes a little longer than acetone.” Dara was skeptical.
I soaked a small ball of cotton with the solvent and went to work in a small area of the sky. Round and round I went with the cotton, but nothing was happening.
“I told you!” Dara said. Then, finally, the cotton began turning amber as it dissolved the old varnish and blue sky appeared. The small area was perfectly clean, and the mineral spirits were no match for the barrier coat. At last, Dara lightened up and conceded that I had been right, but she still wasn't satisfied and I wasn't off the hook yet.
“Well, if we're not going to clean the whole picture, we should have three test spots. One in the sky, one in the landscape, and another on part of a flower,” Dara politely demanded.
Hiding my exasperation, I readily agreed, knowing this would finally put the issue to rest. Without any prompting, they each grabbed a ball of cotton, soaked it with mineral spirits, and claimed their own spots to clean, while I sat back in the chair and watched in triumph.
When I got back out on Seventy-Second Street, I felt like I had just escaped the guillotine. I went straight to Gino's and ordered a glass of wine. Between the vanishing flyspecks and Dara's experiments with acetone, I had come within a hairsbreadth of being exposed! After my second glass of wine, I was convinced that the girl who couldn't find the acetone and brought the mineral spirits had to be an angel in disguise.
The rest of the summer passed agonizingly slowly. In order to get my mind off things, I packed a few small paintings and took off for London. For the next two months, I hung out at museums, went out with friends, and drove to the West Country and hunted for frames in the Cotswolds, but nothing could dispel my anxiety. I was tormented with thoughts of what Dara might be doing with Fat Boy. I had to remind myself that it was summer. Sotheby's was closed, and Dara was probably out in the Hamptons going to dinner parties and sailing on yachts.
Then one night as I was lying in bed, I was struck with the worst thought of all! Jimmy's old friend Bill “Mr. Nineteenth-Century America” Gerdts was a consultant to Sotheby's. I had never thought of that. Surely, I reasoned, he would be shown the painting by virtue of his friendship with Jim. He would never accept the idea that Jimmy had had a passionflower Heade in his collection and had not shown it to him. And Gerdts would know better than anyone that the idea of Jimmy's ever giving away such a painting was preposterous. Worse yet, Gerdts was a good friend of Theodore Stebbins, the world's expert on Heade, whose authentication would be needed before the sale. I was sure that when I returned home in August, I would find an ominous message from Dara on my answering machine. I hated myself for not thinking of these possible complications beforehand and not demanding the hundred grand up front.
By the end of August, I had placed the small pictures I had brought along in a number of regional auction houses. At least, I thought, I'll have a few bucks coming in if Fat Boy bombs out. When I finally got home to Florida, I tiptoed up to my answering machine, held my breath, and pushed the button. There was nothing from Dara. That was a good sign, but I could not imagine that someone would not raise a red flag in light of the Gerdts-Stebbins connection.
Next was the pile of mail. My eye caught the familiar sight of a thick Sotheby's catalog envelope. Ripping it open in a frenzy, I grabbed the catalog and fanned through the pages. On the second try, Fat Boy went by in a flash! I backed up to the page and there he was, sporting a three-hundred-thousand-dollar estimate, fly crap, patches, and all! He'd been authenticated by Stebbins, and the provenance stated: “acquired by the present owner from James H. Ricau.” For the moment, I was greatly relieved. Another important hurdle was cleared. But my anxiety soon returned. There was still the exhibition ahead. The painting and the provenance would be exposed to the scrutiny of everyone. Perhaps, I feared, for one reason or another, Gerdts hadn't connected with the painting, but he, or for that matter anyone else who knew Jimmy, would certainly see it now. If eyebrows were raised and rumors started to circulate, the picture could be withdrawn from the sale.
The exhibition ran for ten days. Each one seemed like an eternity. Every time the phone rang, I dreaded it might be Dara. I was afraid the anxiety was beginning to affect my mind. Never before had I jumped through so many hoops or had such close calls with a painting. Was fate playing a cruel joke on me? I wondered. After coming this far, would Fat Boy be shot down just when I could practically smell the money?
The night before the sale, I had a very strange dream. In it, I was sitting at a kitchen table with a friend. Before us on the table was a stack of
Town and Country
magazines and a pile of Mickey Mouse watches. We were laughing hysterically as we flipped through the magazines in search of ads for Patek Philippe wristwatches. With scissors, we were cutting out the faces of the expensive watches from the advertisements. Then we were opening up the Mickey Mouse watches and gluing the paper cutouts over the watch faces.
“It will never work!” my friend pleaded, doubled up with laughter. But I insisted it would, as we feverishly worked on. In the final sequence of the dream, we were busy walking through a beautiful residential street in what appeared to be London, carrying a bag of the watches. We passed the white façades of town houses in Belgravia until we arrived at the one I was searching for. “Here it is,” I said to my friend, and pointed to a plaque above the door that had the number seventy-five prominently embossed upon it.
The next day, by three in the afternoon, I couldn't stand the suspense anymore. I dialed Sotheby's automated auction results number and punched in the sale code and lot number. An emotionless electronic voice stated that Lot 22 had sold for $717,500.
A week passed and not a word from Sotheby's. Then, ten days after the sale, Dara called. Payment had been made, and, true to her word, she directed the settlement department to wire the funds to my account immediately.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Checkmate
A
t this juncture, I felt that any misunderstandings I might have had with Sotheby's in the past, any perceived slights, any bad feelings, should be laid to rest. Yeah, I got a kick out of reading about Fat Boy in the press:
“Yes indeed. Every dealer from Tom Colville to Howard Godel took a crack at this filthy, untouched, obviously prime Heade. The bids quickly zoomed to $400,000, where the battle continued between Vance Jordan and an anonymous collector bidding by telephone, who finally won out at $717,500 (including buyer's premium), more than double the $200,000/$300,000 estimate”
(Maine Antique Digest
, November 1994).
Rumor had it that the buyer was Richard Manoogian, a billionaire collector who had assembled the finest collection of Martin Johnson Heades in the world. Curious thing, though: around a year after the sale, a rumor hit the street that “an important Heade sold at Sotheby's last year
disintegrated
during restoration.”
Oh, well, such is life, I thought, I just hope they don't call me for a refund, because I'd become accustomed, or rather addicted, to a new way of life.
Everything I owned was paid for, and I hadn't a nickel of debt. Between my last score and savings, I had around a million, all cash, and that didn't include my stock portfolio. All my monthly bills for the house in Florida were paid a year in advance. When I got tired of painting, I just locked the door, took a cab to the airport, and headed to New York or London.
In New York, I had an arrangement with a girl I'd met through Tony years ago. For a painting now and then, I had a home in the West Village. In London I still stayed at the Vicarage. I hung out at cafés, read the stock reports, and of course placed paintings in the salesrooms, but most of all I loved the ambiance of the auction world. The fascination never wore off. I moved with ease in the salesrooms. I enjoyed getting dressed in a tailored suit and mingling with the collectors and dealers at the exhibitions. I chatted with familiar faces and discreetly observed people examining my paintings and marking their catalogs.
In Florida I had met Beverly, a beautiful twenty-three-year-old law student. We had great fun together and took weekend trips to South Beach. We went on shopping sprees, spending thousands on Versace couture, and we went to all the best restaurants and clubs at night.
During this period, I had so mastered the hand and style of Martin Johnson Heade that I began to “evolve”
The Gems of Brazil
, as I believe Heade would himself have done in time. I began making alterations, improvements, and innovations on the original collection of paintings. I was convinced that Heade would thank me, if he could, for carrying on the development of his work. Even though prudence dictated that I should not spring another “Heade” on the market just yet, it didn't stop me from selling them privately to collectors and dealers who understood what I did.