The Art Forger (43 page)
Ironically, it was the will that caused the installation to be delayed. There was a legal battle over whether Degas’
After the Bath
could be hung in the museum. Belle’s will specifies that nothing in the museum can be removed or changed, and Virgil Rendell’s forgery was hanging there when she died. Fortunately, common sense won out, and the Gardner will be auctioning off Virgil’s version to bolster the museum’s endowment.
Karen Sinsheimer walks up to me. “Claire, Claire, Claire,” she says. “You just can’t keep yourself out of trouble, can you?”
“Guess not.” I’m encouraged by her smile but still uncomfortable with our history. It’s like this with so many people here tonight.
“I’m so sorry, Claire. I wanted to tell you in person how wrong I was not to take your claim about Isaac more—”
I wave her apology aside. “Not important. I’m just glad things worked out.” And work out they did. After the Gardner determined that
Bath II
was my work, MoMA went back and retested
4D.
And this time, the experts got it right.
I’m suddenly surrounded by the gang from Jake’s. They appear to be even more excited than I am, and they’ve clearly had many more drinks.
Mike throws an arm around my shoulders. “And you thought this day would never come.”
“Crystal’s here,” Danielle hisses. “We’re all ignoring her.”
Maureen holds up her glass of champagne. “About time you were buying me a drink.”
Small squeezes me around the waist and starts to cry.
Kristi pulls me away from Small. “Just got off the phone with the contemporary curator at the Whitney. They’re in a bidding war with a collector in Bangkok for
Nighttime T.
” She practically pounds me on the back.
Rik comes toward us. He spent the afternoon with me, helping with last minute details at the gallery. Now he grabs both of my hands and gives me a deep, penetrating stare. He blinks rapidly to hold back the tears. I have to grab a tissue quickly so mine don’t destroy my makeup.
“Bear,” is all he can manage.
The discovery of Degas’
After the Bath
sent all the Belleophiles into an ecstatic frenzy, each offering different versions of the possible historical events. The biggest debate is between those who believe Belle and Degas were involved in a passionate love affair—there are enough rumors of her extramarital conquests to back this up, although no specific evidence of this particular dalliance—and those who maintain she not only never would have cheated on Jack but never would have posed nude. They attribute the body in the painting to Degas’ imagination. And there’s no denying he had plenty of that. Still, if Belle never had an affair with Degas and never posed nude, why would she have buried the painting and hired Virgil Rendell to forge it?
For it appears Rendell did forge it, but not because he stole it or was blackmailing Belle; according to Sandra, it was Belle herself who didn’t want it seen. Based on a comparison between the painting Aiden turned over to the FBI, the same one he brought to my studio, and Sandra’s
Amelia,
authenticators determined they were the work of the same artist.
There was another Rendell mystery that troubled me: Why were his journal and sketchbook mixed in with the Prescott/Stoneham memorabilia? When I asked Sandra, she confessed yet another family secret: Virgil Rendell was her grandfather. He and Amelia had a long-running affair; Fanny, Sandra’s mother, was their child. And yes, it was Belle, the matriarch, whose overconcern with class had forced the young lovers apart and compelled Amelia into an unhappy marriage.
It’s ten o’clock, and the party’s going full force, with more people coming in than there are leaving. The whole thing’s surreal: the sales, the attention, the people popping up from odd corners of my life. Kimberly from Beverly Arms. Ms. Santo, my high school art teacher. Shelley McRae, my childhood babysitter. The optometrist from my neighborhood eyeglass store. Even Helene, a third cousin from Providence. It’s so bizarre that at times it feels as if I’m not actually here. That I’m just a façade, smiling the smile, talking the talk, while my real self is off somewhere else being regular Claire.
Kristi and Chantal draw me into a corner. “The Whitney scored
Nighttime T,
” Kristi cries.
Now I know for sure I’m not really Claire, that I’ve assumed the persona of some other artist. The Whitney.
“It’s true.” Chantal claps her hands together.
Kristi points to a chair, and I sit, stunned, dazed, not able to believe. She glances at her watch and says to Chantal, “Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ll go down first thing in the morning and tell Markel.” Then she throws me a guilty glance. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to mention.”
“Not necessary,” I say, but the truth is, I’d just as soon not be reminded of Aiden.
He’s still in jail, held without bail, awaiting a trial that probably won’t start for another six months, maybe a year. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since our last conversation, and that’s the way I plan to keep it. Whatever my feelings may be for Aiden, complete disassociation from him is a penance I accept.
The FBI finally allowed the gallery to reopen just last month, and in a concession I almost didn’t make, I accepted Kristi’s offer to hold the show here. Rik said I had to, that I shouldn’t allow misplaced guilt to inhibit my career. But he’s wrong about the misplaced part. A woman who makes a Faustian bargain is not without responsibility.
Finding
After the Bath
also saved Aiden’s finger. He was released on bail long enough to pay off the sellers. But after the painting he turned over to the FBI was determined to be Virgil Rendell’s forgery, it was also determined to have been the painting stolen in the Gardner heist, and bail was revoked. Aiden’s the only link the authorities have to the Gardner thieves, and even though he keeps telling them he has no idea who robbed the museum, they’re hoping fear of a long prison term will jog his memory. For all I know, it just might.
Kristi drops a hand to my shoulder. I look around me, at all the people, at all the red dots. I think about the life stretching ahead of me, filled with such promise. But, just desserts, it’s impossible to know if this newfound fortune is due to my talent or to my infamy in a world of instant celebrity. Whether I’m a great artist or just a great forger. And no matter what happens to me or to my work, no matter how big the commissions or how great the museums, I suppose I’ll never know.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the “without whom this wouldn’t have been possible” category, one person stands out: Jan Brogan, my dear friend, my colleague, my biggest fan, and my fiercest critic. Thanks are not enough. Nor are thanks enough to the other members of my writers’ group, Linda Barnes and Hallie Ephron, nor to my family, Dan, Robin, Scott, and Ben. Your encouragement and belief pulled me through the rough patches.
For their professional expertise and patience with my questions, thanks are due to Jamie Elizabeth Crockett, Jane Little Forman, James Kennedy, Edwina Kluender, Kimberle Konover, Victoria Monroe, Roberta Paul, Rob Sinsheimer, and Carol Tovar. Thanks to my readers: Dan Fleishman, Scott Fleishman, Ronnie Fuchs, Gary Goshgarian, Vicki Konover, Sandra Shapiro, Alice Stone, and Robin Zimmern. Special thanks to my smart, supportive editor, Amy Gash, and very special thanks to my agent, Ann Collette, whose tireless efforts and faith in my work made it all come together.
A NOTE ON THE RESEARCH
Although
The Art Forger
is based on extensive research and interviews with painters, dealers, and curators, it is a work of fiction. All the characters, and most of the situations and places in the current-day story, are creatures of my imagination: There is no Markel G, no Jake’s, no Beverly Arms, no Al’s Art Supply, no Reproductions.com, and the
Boston Globe
article that opens the book never appeared in that newspaper. There is, on the other hand, an Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—although no sub-basement—a Museum of Fine Arts, a Museum of Modern Art, a Mandarin Oriental Hotel/Boston, the South End, and Newbury Street. I have attempted to describe these places accurately.
The painting techniques Claire uses for both her forgery and her own work are consistent with current practices, as are the descriptions of the struggles of a young artist. The forgers and dealers she discovers through her Internet research were/are actual people, including John Myatt, Ely Sakhai, and Han van Meegeren, and the specifics of their crimes, methods, inventions, and punishments are also accurate. Virgil Rendell is a fictional character.
The details of the 1990 robbery of the Gardner Museum are factual—it remains the largest unsolved art heist in history—with the exception of the inclusion of Degas’ fifth
After the Bath,
which neither was stolen nor exists, although it is a composite based on his other four
After the Bath
works. Three of Degas’ drawings,
Program for an Artistic Soiree, La Sortie du Pelage,
and
Cortege aux Environs de Florence,
were taken that night and remain unaccounted for.
The letters Belle Gardner writes to her niece, Amelia, are an amalgam of fact and fiction. Belle was in the places cited at the dated times, pursuing paintings for her collection. Her relationships with John “Jack” Gardner, John Sargent, Henry James, James Whistler, and Bernard Berenson are based on historical fact, although the actual events she describes, dinner parties, Longchamps races, travels, illnesses, and so on, are not. She did walk two lion cubs down the streets of Boston, and she did wear a headband with the words
OH YOU RED SOX
to the symphony. Her only child, Jackie, did die at age two, and she did raise Jack Gardner’s three nephews after the deaths of their parents, although one nephew died in childhood. But there was never an Amelia, nor, obviously, a Sandra Stoneham.
Neither Claire nor I were able to discover any mention of Isabella Stewart Gardner and Edgar Degas meeting each other, although they traveled in the same circles, in the same locations, at the same times. Therefore, the entire portion of the novel concerned with the relationship between Belle and Edgar is a fabrication, as are all the story events that result from this imagined pairing. Yet, the personalities of the two are based on historical fact and biographers’ speculations, so how are we to know, 150 years later, what might or might not have occurred?
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2012 by Barbara A. Shapiro.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
ISBN 978-1-61620-180-7
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