The Lost Painting (19 page)

Benedetti had not doubted that the painting in Dublin had come from Hamilton Nisbet’s collection. The mistaken attribution to Honthorst, perpetuated over two hundred years, had been sufficient for him. But now, he had something more. The frames provided physical proof of a direct link to Hamilton Nisbet, and the documentary trail linked Hamilton Nisbet to the Mattei family.

R
AYMOND
K
EAVENEY HAD BECOME A BELIEVER.
T
HE DIRECTOR
was by now convinced that Benedetti had found the lost painting by Caravaggio. The documentary evidence and Benedetti’s discoveries in Scotland all fit together as neatly as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Keaveney now began worrying about the future. He doubted the Jesuits could afford to keep the painting. It would cost a huge sum to insure, and the Jesuit residence, with people coming in and out all the time, lacked the security to keep an object of such value. They would probably have to sell it. And that was Keaveney’s greatest fear. He knew there would be no lack of ready buyers. Once the Jesuits knew the truth about the painting’s origins, his task would be to persuade them to keep it in Ireland as part of the country’s national patrimony. He hoped he could persuade them to leave it at the National Gallery of Ireland on a permanent loan: where it would be safe, where others could see it, and where it would add luster to the gallery’s reputation.

All of this presumed, of course, that the Jesuits actually owned the painting. That was Keaveney’s other worry. He did not yet know how they had happened to acquire it, whether they had purchased it or someone had given it to them. If it had been a gift, it was always possible that the owner, or some heir of the owner, might emerge to claim it, once its true value was known. Given the amount of money at stake—tens of millions, certainly—the issue of ownership could turn into a legal nightmare, one that might take years to resolve.

Keaveney and Brian Kennedy had decided that Kennedy would keep in touch with Father Barber. He would stop by the Jesuit residence every so often and let the priest know how the restoration was proceeding. Kennedy had no desire to lie to Father Barber. But he would tell him only what they knew for certain.

In his first report, a few months after Benedetti had taken the painting, Kennedy informed Father Barber that the restoration was proceeding more slowly than they had anticipated, but that the painting was “a fairly good” Italian work.

Father Barber looked concerned. “Italian?” he said. “Does that mean that it is not a genuine Honthorst after all?”

“Oh, no, no,” replied Kennedy. “Honthorst worked in Rome, and if it is by him, it was almost certainly painted while he was there. We’re looking into that aspect.”

Father Barber appeared relieved.

On Kennedy’s next visit, some months later, he informed Father Barber that the painting was a
very
good Italian painting. “In the manner of Caravaggio,” Kennedy added.

Father Barber was pleased to hear this. He asked how the restoration was coming along.

“Oh, it’s coming along quite well now,” replied Kennedy. “There was a problem at the beginning because Sergio didn’t have the right type of canvas for relining it.”

“I see,” said Father Barber.

“It is going to take longer than we thought,” explained Kennedy. “Sergio has a lot of work to do for the gallery. We have an exhibition of fifty-four paintings that are traveling to America this summer, and he must put those works in order.”

“Ah,” said Father Barber.

Back at the gallery, Kennedy met with Keaveney and Benedetti. Father Barber was a reasonable and patient man, Kennedy said, but perhaps it was time they invited him over to see his painting. After all, they’d had possession of it for almost a year now.

Keaveney saw no harm in this.

B
ENEDETTI HAD RELINED THE PAINTING WITH A FRESH
I
TALIAN-
woven canvas. The process had gone without incident, and the cracks caused by the earlier relining were barely detectable to the uninformed eye. O’Connor, of course, could see them, but even another restorer, one with no knowledge of what had happened, would likely attribute them to age. And the average viewer, looking at the painting in the gallery, would never notice them.

By the time Father Barber visited the studio, Benedetti had also finished cleaning away the brown haze of dust and grime. The colors and details had emerged with a vivid luminosity.

Father Barber stared at the painting as if seeing it for the first time. “I hadn’t realized,” he murmured, “just how different it would look. It really is quite beautiful, isn’t it?”

Everyone nodded assent.

The painting, Benedetti explained to Father Barber, was ready for in-fill and retouching, the final and most time-consuming stages of restoration. He had removed all the work of the previous restorer, revealing many small lacunae, spots of missing paint fragments that showed starkly here and there, down to the original ground on the picture. Most were no larger than the size of a thumbtack, and some were much smaller. The majority were scattered on the right side of the picture, where the damage had been most severe. Benedetti explained that he would have to fill all those lacunae with thin layers of a putty-like substance to bring the gaps level with the paint surface. And then he could begin retouching, mixing paints made in Italy especially for restoration. They were varnish-based, which meant that they dried quickly and were easy to remove.

Father Barber followed all of this with intense interest. He had many questions, about the use of solvents and why they hadn’t also dissolved the paint, about the substance Benedetti would use to fill the lacunae, about matching the colors for retouching. Benedetti answered patiently.

Father Barber had understood from the beginning that the process would be long and meticulous, but now he had a new appreciation of just how long and meticulous. He also understood that Benedetti could work on the painting only part-time, and that the traveling exhibition to America would occupy him for some months to come.

9

T
HE
N
ATIONAL
G
ALLERY OF
I
RELAND POSSESSED A SINGLE PAINTING
by Rembrandt, done in 1647, called
The Rest on the Flight to Egypt.
It was a small and dark painting, a landscape at night, which the gallery had always promoted as one of its main attractions. “Our grandest prize,” Raymond Keaveney called it.

Keaveney had gotten a telephone call some months earlier from Neil MacGregor, the director of the National Gallery in London. MacGregor wanted to borrow the little Rembrandt for an exhibition. Could Keaveney make it available?

Requests of this sort are routine between gallery directors, although they often involve considerable bargaining. To Keaveney, it was important to maintain good relations with the British gallery, which was much larger and far richer than its Irish sister. London, for example, owned twenty Rembrandts. Keaveney told MacGregor that they could work something out, although as MacGregor surely knew, the painting was the Irish Gallery’s most important work. How long would London want to keep it?

Nine months, replied MacGregor.

Nine months? repeated Keaveney.

A big and important exhibition, explained MacGregor, paintings, etchings, and drawings that would travel to Berlin and Amsterdam.

Keaveney was in a quandary. He wanted to accommodate London, but to have the Rembrandt gone for so long would be painful. On the other hand, he knew he could ask MacGregor for something in return, for reciprocity, but what?

Keaveney made a trip to London, where he wandered around the National Gallery, gazing at its many masterpieces, considering what he might like to have in place of the Rembrandt.

He paused in the vast gallery of Italian Baroque paintings. Denis Mahon owned half a dozen pictures in this gallery, all by Guercino and Guido Reni. All were on long-term loan, although Sir Denis had made it clear that someday the National Gallery would own them outright. The room also contained three paintings by Caravaggio. One,
Boy Bitten by a Lizard,
was a small work, done in the early days when Caravaggio was selling his paintings on the street. The second, dark and melancholic, was
Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist.
Caravaggio had painted it in 1607 in Naples, where he’d fled after the death of Ranuccio Tomassoni. And the third was
The Supper at Emmaus.

Keaveney stood in front of the Caravaggio pictures. Of course! he thought suddenly. The answer was staring him directly in the face.
The Supper at Emmaus
! Caravaggio had painted it for Ciriaco Mattei one year before
The Taking of Christ
. The two paintings were similar in size and format, both horizontal with half-length figures. If London would agree to lend it, Benedetti could compare them side by side.

Back in Dublin, Keaveney told Benedetti and Brian Kennedy about his idea. They would use the
Supper
as the centerpiece of a small exhibition of their own, the followers of Caravaggio, the Caravaggisti, as they were known. From their own holdings they could select fifteen or so Caravaggisti paintings to display—a Gentileschi, a Ribera, one by Mattia Preti, and some other minor artists.

The idea for a Caravaggisti show was, as Brian Kennedy observed, something of “a ruse,” but it also had obvious appeal, given the growing fame of Caravaggio. Benedetti suggested they might even try to get the
St. John
from the Capitoline Gallery. Then they would have all three of the Mattei paintings together, in one place, to compare. The results of such a comparison might prove quite valuable. Apart from the brushwork, Benedetti could examine the original canvases and compare the weave and the threads. It was possible that Caravaggio had cut the canvases for all the Mattei paintings from the same long roll.

It would, of course, create a sensation in the art world if they also unveiled
The Taking of Christ
at the same time. But that was much too risky. Even if Benedetti didn’t doubt the painting’s authenticity, they still had to assemble a complete dossier, irrefutable proof, and solicit confirmation from renowned experts like Denis Mahon.

Keaveney called Neil MacGregor to propose the trade. He could hear the hesitation in MacGregor’s voice. “Uh, let me look into that,” MacGregor said. And then: “Have you considered anything else?”

The Supper at Emmaus
was much more famous, and much bigger, than the little Rembrandt. London had lent it out only once before, to the Metropolitan Museum in New York for a huge and carefully planned exhibition. Keaveney was asking for one of the great prizes of the British National Gallery.

In the weeks that followed, Keaveney had several discussions with London. They tried to persuade him to choose something else. He persisted. London, always polite, never directly told him no, and Keaveney took this as a positive sign.

Benedetti had meanwhile called Rome. He described the Caravaggisti show and asked if they would consider lending the
St. John
. Rome was more direct than London. They said no.

10

I
T WAS
O
CTOBER 1991.
M
ORE THAN A YEAR HAD PASSED SINCE
Benedetti had taken the painting from the Jesuit residence. He had accompanied the gallery’s paintings to America, and then he took a short vacation in Italy, to see relatives in Florence. While there, he decided to attend an exhibition of Guercino’s paintings in Bologna. He’d heard that Denis Mahon had written the exhibition catalogue and had lent several of his own Guercinos to show.

The train ride from Florence to Bologna took only an hour and a half. At the Museo Nazionale, Benedetti wandered around among the tourists looking at the paintings. The show had opened some days earlier, and on this weekday afternoon it was not particularly crowded.

Benedetti came into a large room and saw, sitting alone on a wooden bench, his back to him, the figure of Denis Mahon. The Englishman wore his habitual dark blue suit, and Benedetti could tell, even from behind, that he was tired, his shoulders slumped.

Benedetti had not expected to see Mahon at the exhibition, this many days after the opening. He went over to the bench and sat down beside Mahon, who was resting with his hands atop his wooden cane. Mahon looked up, as if emerging from a reverie. “Ah, Sergio!” he said softly. “What a surprise to see you.”

They spoke in Italian. Benedetti asked after Mahon’s health—he calculated that the Englishman was now around eighty-two years old. They hadn’t seen each other in six or seven years. Sir Denis replied that he was in fine form, just a bit tired after the inauguration of the exhibit, several speeches, and an endless round of dinners.

Benedetti complimented him on the exhibit and the catalogue.

“Yes, it’s all come out rather well, I think,” said Mahon.

They chatted for a few minutes, Benedetti all the while debating internally whether this was the right time to tell Sir Denis about
The Taking of Christ
. He had planned to tell him at some point. He knew that the Englishman’s opinion of the painting would be essential to establishing its authenticity in the world of Caravaggio scholars. He wanted Sir Denis to give his blessing to the picture, but he had not anticipated seeing him in Bologna. He had imagined a meeting with Mahon for which he would come well prepared, with photographs, detailed close-ups, a file of documentation.

But he couldn’t resist. The chance meeting was simply too propitious. He looked around to make sure they were alone in the room, and said to Mahon, in a low voice, “I think I might have found
The Taking of Christ
.”

“Caravaggio?” Sir Denis exclaimed, looking up with sharp eyes.

Benedetti nodded.

“You’re not really serious, are you?” said Mahon, with a slight smile.

“I am serious,” said Benedetti. “I’m certain it is the original.”

Mahon grinned broadly and banged his cane three times on the ground, the sound reverberating in the empty gallery. “Where the devil did you find it?”