Chapter 37 #4
I can tell they have a hundred more questions, but a whirling dervish blasts through the unlocked front door and puts a stop to the interrogation.
“Sorry I’m late.” Amy Fox is as scattered and manic as I remember her.
When she sees me, she rushes over for a hug, her wiry gray curls escaping a messy bun.
I feel as though a long-lost family member has appeared and in some ways that’s exactly what she is.
Amy was a junior curator when we first met.
I was barely seven years old when she spotted me visiting the galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on a near daily basis.
She’s the one who first bought me supplies and eventually let me shadow her as she worked to put together exhibits.
And now I know she was responsible for bringing me to Stella. I grip her so tightly she gasps.
“It’s good to see you too.” She laughs when I finally let go.
“Ms. Fox, what a delight to see you here in Amsterdam. I hope your flight was comfortable,” Stella says smoothly.
“It was the first time I’ve flown first class.
I don’t know if I can ever go back. They don’t stop giving you free champagne!
” Amy is the opposite of the composed Scandinavians who came in before her, but they seem entertained by her antics.
“I wanted to take a quick shower and freshen up, but I lay down on the bed in that gorgeous hotel for just a minute and fell asleep for hours.”
“Never mind. You’re here now. Shall we get started,” Stella says. It’s a command, not a question.
Watching art authenticators do their thing is what I imagine it’s like watching a surgeon at work, the laser-like focus, the way the rest of the room seems to disappear.
They use the sharpest, most exact scalpels to slice away minuscule bits of paint from the canvases and then drop them into a test tube of liquid to see the chemical reaction.
Mare wields a handheld infrared analyzer to get a visual sense of what lies beneath the first layer of pigment.
“The art of deconstructing the art,” Colette whispers in my ear as we watch, rapt.
I can tell Colette is itching to join them. This is her passion, and if all goes to plan it will be what she does with the rest of her life. She will join the ranks of these experts in addition to becoming a very wealthy woman in her own right.
Colette has idolized Mare Lindquist since she started interning for the auction house, but she always assumed she retired early.
Stella filled her in on what actually happened to Mare.
Last year, Mare had questioned the provenance of a Matisse that Louis Swanson acquired and convinced the Christie’s brass that they shouldn’t represent it in a public auction.
While many of the Swanson deals happened on the private market, the public ones, the auctions, were important to continue to increase the value of other paintings by an artist. It wasn’t that Mare thought the Matisse wasn’t real.
That wasn’t in question. The painting was originally owned by a Jewish merchant family from Algeria who fled during World War II, after which the artwork was stolen by the Nazis.
Louis Swanson deliberately concealed evidence, “sanitized” the provenance, and created a false ownership chain to hide the truth.
Mare tracked down the original ownership, but Louis quickly had it buried along with her career at Christie’s.
The painting went to auction and sold for more than the estimate—a whopping $68 million. Had Lindquist been successful in exposing what she learned, the artwork’s value would have collapsed to about $12 to $15 million. But that didn’t happen.
It’s been resold since to the Russian financier Alex Olevsky for $90 million, clearing an easy $22 million profit for Swanson. Now Lindquist is all too willing to exact retribution.
“It’s clear as day,” she says now, spite dripping from her tone. “These were painted within the past twenty years. I will testify that this painting is a fraud.”
“And so will I,” Eliza Sachs chimes in.
“Me too,” Amy adds.
The entire room seems to release a collective sigh of relief. I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding in. Lucie releases her favorite joyous French exclamation. “Youpi!,” which translates to something like “Yippee!” I should be elated, but I still can’t muster any kind of enthusiasm.
Lucie squeezes my hand. Colette grips the other. Whatever happens next, at least we’ll be doing this together.
“I’ll speak with the authorities about the counterfeit paintings,” Caroline says through a rare smile.
“Ms. Sachs, Ms. Lindquist, Ms. Fox, you will obviously be very well compensated for your expert opinions in all of this. And, Ms. Lindquist, I imagine you will also feel quite vindicated once my father’s schemes are revealed. ” She looks over at her grandmother.
“And as for you. We have a lot to talk about.” Caroline strides across the room to stand by her side. “It’s high time we brought you back from the dead.”