Caravaggio's Angel (15 page)

‘Well,’ said Freddie after a while. ‘That certainly is a turn-up for the book!’ He counted them off: ‘There’s the Louvre’s – came from Berenson who stole it from the church in the first place. The Getty got theirs direct from the Doria palazzo, terrible condition, but provenance indisputable – never moved since the family bought it from the chap himself. And the mysterious Other, that appeared mysteriously in 1952 and then dematerialized. Del Monte’s. This one.’

‘It wasn’t this one, actually,’ I said smugly. ‘In any case, how could this one be Del Monte’s? Wouldn’t the
originario
have been the one he did for the church? That was the commission, surely he’d have wanted to do that first and get paid?’

‘Del Monte was his patron, they’d been friends for years. Maybe he liked this one best, or persuaded Caravaggio to let him have first pick. You’ve got to agree it’s far better than the one in the Louvre.’

I nodded: there was no disputing that.

‘So,’ he continued. ‘Where’s this mysterious other pic-ture you’ve found? Or aren’t you at liberty to say?’

‘In France,’ I told him, truthfully but unhelpfully. ‘It’s certainly the one that was in the exhibition. Where did you find yours?’

‘Oh, it emerged,’ he said airily, ‘the way these things sometimes do. You know how it is. Someone decides to sell, they need the money, or someone’s left them some-thing they don’t like, or haven’t the room for. Why they’re doing it’s no business of mine.’

We grinned at each other: fifteen all.

‘Are you a dealer?’

‘In a small way. I just handle a few things. I’m sure I don’t need to tell
you
,’ he added confidentially, ‘that it’s not just a question of selling, look what I’ve got. You need to set the scene, build up a buzz, create the right atmosphere. I’m rather good at that, though I say it. Caravaggio’s always been a particular favourite of mine, and of course the missing St Cecilia’s one of those things everyone always hopes they’ll find. When I first saw this I couldn’t believe my eyes.’

‘Whose is it?’

He shook his head. ‘A private collector. I think he’d prefer not to have his name known. But you can imagine how I felt when I heard about this exhibition of yours. I met Tony Malahide at a dinner-party and he mentioned it to me. I said to him, but how can she possibly do it when nobody knows where the third picture is? But he insisted you were on to something. Touching faith, I thought, but frankly I didn’t believe him. I knew exactly where it was, and you certainly weren’t on to
that
. But there we go, you were telling the truth all the time. I think this deserves a drink, don’t you?’ – and he opened yet another panelled cupboard to reveal a fridge, from which he extracted a bottle of champagne. ‘Whether this mysterious find of yours is
right
is quite another matter, of course,’ he added. ‘Even so, it’s interesting. Very.’

We clinked glasses, and he said, ‘So tell me, do you have a photo of your find?’

‘I do, actually.’

‘Not on you, I don’t suppose?’

I was about to say No when I remembered that my camera was still in my bag. I brought it out and checked through its contents. I’d taken several shots of the picture, in case any of them failed to work. One wasn’t up to much – I’d been standing too far away – but the other two were not bad. I passed the camera over, and Freddie studied them intently, switching from one to the other. ‘Too bad they’re so small,’ he said.

‘We could download them into your computer if you’ve got the right software. Then you can blow them up as much as you want. Otherwise you’ll have to wait till I get back to the office, and I can send them to you.’

He brightened. ‘Shall we have a go?’

As every computer-user knows, these things never work. The compatible is never really compatible, PCs won’t speak to Macs, the disk is never readable. But this time a miracle occurred, and there was Juliette’s St Cecilia up on Freddie Angelo’s twenty-inch screen. He studied it intently. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Look.’

He pointed to the Angel’s left hand, which was held over St Cecilia’s head, index and middle fingers extended in a sort of blessing.

Once again he had me maddeningly mystified. I shook my head.

He led the way back into the other room, uncovered the picture, switched on the light and pointed to his Angel’s hand. Only the forefinger was extended. ‘I thought so,’ he said, and twanged his braces again, a habit of his, as I came to realize, whenever he was excited.

Back in the office, he took a big Caravaggio book off the shelf and we looked up St Cecilia. Disappointingly, it showed only one of the pictures – the one in the Louvre. The Angel there, as at La Jaubertie, showed two extended fingers. ‘Two!’ he pointed out triumphantly. ‘Otherwise they’re all very similar, aren’t they – almost identical, apart from the fruit. I’d say he must have taken a tracing. Of course, with photos like this there’s no way of knowing what the treatment’s like. The one I’ve got here’s a very finished piece – look at the fruit, and the treatment of the fur – no trouble too great. He knew which side his bread was buttered . . . I’d take bets yours is altogether thinner. More impressionistic.’

‘Mine!’ I laughed. ‘If only! Actually it’s rather fine.’

‘Well, you know what I mean. As for the Louvre’s . . .’ But he was deep in his book again, unwilling to waste so much as a word on the Louvre’s picture. ‘Can’t imagine why they haven’t got the Getty’s here. Perhaps it was still back in Palazzo Doria when this was published.’

I said, ‘But the Getty collection’s online.’

Not only was it online, but sorted alphabetically: C for Caravaggio. We zoomed in on the Angel’s hand. It had three fingers extended.

‘Well,’ said Freddie. ‘I wonder what that can mean.’

‘It could just be the order in which they were painted,’ I suggested.

He looked downcast. ‘It could, I suppose. But wouldn’t that be a pity! Still, if it is, then there’s another proof I’m right.’

Freddie poured us two more glasses of bubbly, and we sipped contemplatively. I was already beginning to experience that feeling where you hover just above ground level – possibly a result of all the excitement, but probably not unconnected with the champagne. All those bubbles – fatal. I said, ‘I hope you’re going to be able to lend this for my exhibition.’

He laughed. ‘I wondered when you were going to ask. If I still have it, I don’t see any reason why not. Think if you produce four, when there are only supposed to be three.
Won’t
that set some cats among the pigeons.’

Four! I should be so lucky. At least, though, now, I could probably count on two.

14

Olivier: London, August

By the time I reeled away from Freddie’s place it was nearly half past two, and all capacity for real work had been efficiently removed by the champagne. Instead, when I got back to my desk, I downloaded the photos I’d taken of the notebook, blew them up as large as seemed practical, and printed them out. That was work too. Of a sort.

I’d managed to photograph about twenty pages before being interrupted, and all seemed legible – or at least as legible as the originals allowed.

Juliette’s grandfather, Valérien de Beaupré, had evidently been a sort of amateur art-fancier. Well-to-do gents of his generation often were – they had to find some way of occupying their time, and this was at least as good as billiards, or dog-breeding, or sinking into a vinous stupor. But unusually, instead of sticking to French artists, as one might expect from a country squireen – de la Tour, Ingres, Greuze, Fragonard – he had somehow, somewhere, acquired a taste for the Italian baroque. Perhaps it simply reflected his purse: what was fashionable was dear, and in France, fashionable meant French. The less wealthy connoisseur did better to concentrate on the overlooked – a category which at that time included Caravaggio. The notebook was simply a brief record of meetings and trans-actions, possible and actual, beginning in 1910 and continuing until just before the outbreak of war in 1914. Most were purchases, but he also seemed to have made a few sales, perhaps of objects he’d grown tired of, or which he’d maybe bought because he thought he could sell them on at a profit.

It wasn’t exactly a diary, but it did proceed chronologically. And not very far in – to be precise, on page three – came the first mention of the transaction I was interested in. The dealer in question was called Sangallo – one of the names I’d noted glancing through the notebook at La Jaubertie.

1 May. Sangallo, 67 Botteghe Oscure. Reni, soidisant. No. St Cecilia –?M. da Caravaggio? – Possible – S swears yes. Asked where from – C copy of St C church altarpiece,
apparently.

Botteghe Oscure – that must mean the via delle Botteghe Oscure, in Rome. But he didn’t stay in that city long: the following entries showed him in Siena, where he bought an old book from a dealer in piazza Salimbeni and sold it the following evening to an American, a fellow guest at his hotel, and from where he proceeded to Florence, where he bought a painted marriage chest from Giorgio Mascagni, the well-known dealer whose name I’d also noticed when I first glanced at the book. I couldn’t remember seeing a marriage chest at La Jaubertie: perhaps that too had been sold on, though no such sale was recorded in the pages I’d photographed. Or maybe it was in a part of the house I hadn’t visited. But soon we were back in Rome.

23 May. Sangallo. St C – good but exit problems. S to
advise. St C church – altarpiece? None in place.

The exit problems presumably referred to the law then recently passed by the Italian senate in an attempt to stanch the flow of antiquities and artworks out of the country. You had to get an export permit, and if the work was particularly valuable or interesting, no such permit would be forthcoming. In theory. In practice, of course, such obstacles could always be overcome. As, apparently, in this case:

25 May. St C exit extra. Agreed.

Soon after that Valérien left Italy, or at any rate stopped buying. There were no more entries until April the following year, and no more mentions of either Sangallo or the Caravaggio.

I wondered how I could find out more about Sangallo. The name was vaguely familiar, but no context came immediately to mind, and when I googled it the only references were to a pair of early Renaissance architects. But I knew someone who might know.

Dear Freddie, A little puzzle: you wouldn’t happen to know
anything about a dealer named Sangallo, working in Rome
around 1910, would you? All information gratefully welcomed.
Best wishes and thanks for the champagne. Reggie.

Next morning, I found his reply.

Dear Reggie, has this something to do with your mysterious
find? Or maybe it’s just a passing query. Anyway, Sangallo. I think you must be referring to the so-called Barone
Sangallo, who for some years sold antiquities and objets d’art
in the via delle Botteghe Oscure. If this was the same person,
I’m afraid to say it doesn’t bode very well for your picture. Sangallo was an alias of Marcello Cavalletti, a restorer whose
main customer was Joe Duveen. Duveen used to visit the
Cavalletti workshops in Trastevere when he wanted a few
nice shiny pieces for the American market. The Barone’s
establishment was far more discreet and stocked only pieces
that were market-ready. Being a Barone gave him a special
appeal for wandering aristos, always happy to be gently
guided by someone of the right class. I wouldn’t exactly
describe Cavalletti/Sangallo as a forger, but he could take an
unimportant piece and transform it into something rather
special (and expensive . . .). After the war (WW1, that is) he
seems to have disappeared, at least from the art scene. Per-haps
he was a combatant, though I have a sense that he was
a bit old for that. More likely he just retired on his profits.

It was delightful meeting you. Good luck with your proj-ect,
and don’t hesitate to approach me if I can help in any
way. With best wishes, Freddie.

That all rang true enough. But somehow Freddie’s description of the Barone Sangallo’s stock in trade didn’t chime with the picture I’d seen at La Jaubertie. That wasn’t a shinied-up piece of second-rate stuff, nor did it feel like a fake. One of the lessons I’d really learned when I did my degree was to
look
. If you look hard enough and long enough at a picture, it’s surprising what that can tell you about it. Including which bits (if any) seem right, and which don’t.

I called my photograph up on to the screen, and studied it. Obviously, a photo can’t tell you as much as the object itself. But it reminded me of the picture – and once again, it smelt right. Perhaps just for once, Sangallo had sold someone the real thing. It made sense. Why fake a Caravaggio – something that wouldn’t fetch much even if it were an original?

My computer pinged, announcing another email.

Régine – j’ai un tas de choses à te raconter – pas possible
de tout écrire, je passe par Londres après-demain, tu seras
là? Donne-moi un coup de fil, ou émel – ton Olivier.

I’d been so pleased with myself, I was back in the real world, had put him firmly to the back of my mind, that was that, over, done with. But all it took was a word (
ton
Olivier
) and my heart turned over in my chest. Literally. A most uncomfortable experience.

When I’d recovered my breath I considered what I should do. Or rather, what I wanted to do, which of course was a different thing altogether. What I
should
do was email him and arrange to meet for lunch, preferably here at the Gallery, or else in some other suitably public space. What I
wanted
. . .

In the end I simply emailed him my work telephone number. If (when) he called, we’d take it from there.

He called in the morning, just after half past nine. Granted, we’re an hour behind – for him it was half past ten. Even so, it was gratifyingly prompt. When I heard his voice, my heart did that thing again.

‘Did you take the Eurostar?’

‘I just got off. I’m in Waterloo. I tried earlier, but you weren’t there. When are you free?’

‘Lunch? Dinner? How long are you staying?’ So much for my resolve to stay cool. It had lasted just about five seconds.

‘Depends how long the story takes. Overnight, perhaps. I’ve got to interview someone, and we’ll take some photos. Lucky,
hein
?’

‘I thought you were on your holidays.’

‘I was, now I’m back at work. The photographer’s got to get back to Paris this evening but I can probably stay till tomorrow. So, dinner?’

I invited him round to my place.

I don’t really know how I got through the day. It was just a space, to be negotiated until the evening finally arrived. I passed the time, or some of it, planning dinner. Nothing complicated – this wasn’t the evening for complex cookery. Nothing smelly, so no fish. Not steak – I can’t face those great solid lumps of meat at the best of times, and this particular evening I knew I’d never get more than a mouth-ful down, particularly as the weather was hot, not an unknown occurrence in August. In the end I bunked off work early and slid down to Selfridge’s food hall, where I bought a jar of lumpfish roe, and the butcher slivered me off some beef for carpaccio, and I knew the tomatoes would be reliably sweet enough for salad. I prepared it when I got home, leaving the tomatoes and mozzarella to soak up all that delicious basil and balsamic vinegar (no garlic today, thanks). Then I put a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge and took a long shower and painted my toenails a fetching shade of dark crimson, after hesitating between that and a silvery green that I finally decided was more a winter colour. And it was still only six o’clock. So I put on my favourite floaty white dress that showed off my tan, then changed it for some green silk trousers with a white silk-knit top, then the dress again, then decided the trousers were better. Then I tried on a few more clothes, but in the end came back to the trousers. Then I hesitated between beaded sandals and bare feet, and looked at my watch, which now said a quarter past seven, and wondered whether Olivier would really manage to find his way to this somewhat outlying part of London. And then, at a moment when I had one shoe off and one on, and the bed was strewn with discarded clothes, the doorbell rang and I heard a taxi drive away.

He looked, for an unexpected second, slightly smaller than I remembered: perhaps because this time the turf was mine rather than his. There were other details I’d forgot-ten, too – a slight dimple in his left cheek when he smiled, the way he was square and at the same time wiry – but as soon as I saw him I knew that all that palaver about clothes had been a mere device for passing the time. Clothes were neither here nor there. He followed me in, and shut the door. The taste of him, the fit of our bodies – I remembered it all now. I don’t think we even spoke – certainly not coherent words. We simply made for the bedroom, where within about a minute our clothes – those carefully-selected clothes – joined all the others on the floor as we fell joyfully into each other’s arms.

And what, you may wonder, of my liking for Delphine, of all those notions of female solidarity? Did they melt as soon as our clothes hit the floor and our bodies the bed? No, long before. That battle had been won, or lost, as soon as we agreed on dinner at my place. Yet somewhere, in the recesses of conscience, they lingered. At one point during that blissful interlude, as I lay tracing the contours of a cheekbone, I found myself thinking: I shouldn’t be doing this. I really shouldn’t. And then, as so often before in similar situations, I went on doing it all the same.

At one point I asked him, ‘Do you often do this?’

He hesitated, then said, ‘I try to resist it, but living so much of the time apart, of course it happens.’

‘Did you try to resist me?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply, and that was the end of that conversation.

Later, I asked him whether he really was over on a story.

‘You think I just came to find you?’ he said, raising his eyebrow.

‘It seems possible.’

He laughed. ‘
Eh bien, ma petite chérie
, I’m sorry to disappoint. There really is a story. But I must admit it’s a very boring story, the sort of thing that normally I’d try quite hard to avoid. The editor was astonished at my insistence. I was surprised myself. But I had to see you. Quite apart from this’ – he waved his hand over the tangled heap of sheets – ‘there are things I must tell you.’

‘Then tell.’

He reached for his cigarettes, extracted one, and offered the packet to me. I shook my head: I don’t smoke. Olivier lit a patriotic Gitane, inhaled luxuriously, then turned towards me as I lay beside him, the better to enjoy my astonishment. ‘Jean-Jacques Rigaut has announced he’s going to run for President.’

‘He’d never get elected, surely?’

‘He might or might not. The party probably won’t sup-port him.’

‘Then he can’t, can he?’

‘He says if they don’t, then he’ll run anyway.’

‘As an independent?’

‘Or set up his own party . . . He’d stand quite a good chance, I think, all the rest are so discredited. And he has his own following, however much one might wish he didn’t. But that’s not all. Juliette Rigaut is dead,’ he said. ‘They found her the day after you left.’