The Art Forger (9 page)

When they were gone, Isaac drew me into a deep hug. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough,” he whispered into my ear.

“Hey, Karen Sinsheimer’s willing to take a look at my stuff. That’s thanks enough in my book.”

He buried his head in my hair. “Never, never, ever be able to repay you.”

“I’m not looking for repayment, Saac. Just for you to move forward.” But the praise for
4D
reverberated in my ears.

Better than any of your previous work that I’ve seen,
Karen had said.

It could be your best,
Markel had echoed.

Ten

I do as Markel suggests and open three accounts at three different banks: two savings and a money market. I also buy a couple certificates of deposit, on the advice of the woman setting up one of the accounts, and put the check in my checking/debit card account at yet another bank; I have no separate business account as Markel had assumed. I write one check to the landlord, drop one in the mail to pay down my student loan, and head for Al’s Art Supply with a blank one because I can’t remember how much I owe. All of this feels really, really good. I’m thinking how great it’s going to be to have a working camera on my phone.

Al’s is on Shawmut Avenue, not far from my studio, and it’s everything one would expect from an urban “little box” art store: a cramped, tiny footprint chock full of overstuffed racks, shelves, and row upon row of narrow paint drawers—all wrapped in the delicious aroma of turpentine, paint, and dust. A writer friend once told me that when she walks into a library anywhere in the world, the smell makes her feel instantly at home. That’s what Al’s does for me.

What is unexpected is Al. The first few times I came in, I thought Al was a clerk, that the real Al, the owner, who I pictured as an elderly, grizzly type, was off checking inventory in the back room. Even when she told me her name was Al, it took me a while to make the connection. Al as in Alvina. On the outside, she’s a chic, handsome woman, and on the inside, she’s a mother hen.

“Beautiful Claire!” she cries as I walk in the door. She steps from around her high counter and gives me a hug. “I figured you’d be in this week. That you must be getting short on supplies.” She stands back. “I think you’ve lost weight. Are you forgetting to eat again? Do you want to blow away in the wind?” She sighs. “Of course, on you it looks fabulous.”

“And on you it doesn’t?”

Al’s deep-coppery skin, extraordinary cheekbones, and willowy grace bring to mind those Kenyan runners who always win the Boston Marathon, although she claims to be the scion of American slaves. She has close-cropped hair and at least a half-dozen piercings in each ear, from which hang all manner of wondrous earrings.

After I settle up my account, I head toward the back of the store to pick up a few things I need to begin working on
Bath.
I’m nowhere near ready to start in on the actual painting, but as I study and prepare, I can be stripping the Meissonier, which, depending on the condition of the canvas, could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

I grab some acetone for solvent and rectified petroleum for restrainer as well as a bunch of packages of cotton wool; Meissonier’s painting is large, and I’m going to need to change cloths frequently to keep the canvas clean. I add a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some blotting paper, figuring the old sizing will be yellowed and need bleaching. Who would have ever thought that Ellen Bonanno’s authenticity obsession would come in so handy? During her Repro classes, we all rolled our eyes when she made us strip a canvas, knowing there was no way Repro would ever spring for such an expensive process.

When I actually start painting my version of
Bath,
I’m going to need everything from brushes to paint to varnish, but I haven’t figured out exactly what kinds Degas used, so these will have to wait for a later trip. But I do pick up plenty of silver paint for Xavier before I head home.

When I get back to the studio, instead of starting to strip the Meissonier, I sit down in the chair in front of
Bath.
I lift the two books of Degas’ sketches from their pile on the floor and begin to browse through them. But even as I switch from casual surfing to close examination, I don’t see what I’m looking for. It’s very weird. I’ve found a number of sketches of
Bath’
s Simone and Jacqueline, but I can’t find any of Françoise. Degas was obsessive about his drawings, renowned for doing twenty or thirty studies for a single painting. So where are the studies for Françoise?

Of course, they must exist somewhere, or at least have existed at one time. Neither of my books claims to include every sketch Degas ever made, but one is called,
Edgar Degas: Sketches and Drawings, 1875–1900,
which is when Degas did his bather series. Degas is also well known for using the same models, even the same sketches, in multiple paintings. And while he would change the composition of each work, the same model, often in quite similar poses, would show up from one painting to the next. This constancy gives his series paintings an extraordinary cohesiveness.

I find what appear to be a few compositional drawings for
Bath,
but while Simone and Jacqueline are identical to the women in the painting in front of me, Françoise is not. In the sketch, Not-Françoise has a different body, and she’s standing rather than sitting, creating an asymmetrical composition, which is how the vast majority of Degas’ paintings are balanced. I wish the sketch had more than just a few lines for a face.

Could there be a sixth
After the Bath
? It’s not unheard of to discover an original painting stuffed in someone’s attic hundreds of years after it was painted. Or, more likely, Degas may have planned to do a sixth but never did. I focus on finding more differences between the two women. In the painting in front of me, Françoise is sturdy and coarse-looking, as are almost all of Degas’ bathers, but his sketches of Not-Françoise depict a smaller and more delicate woman with a tiny waist. Although I can’t be sure as the face is only roughed in, the model in the sketches doesn’t appear to be as pretty as the model in the painting, so it’s possible Degas just replaced her with someone more attractive. But then, where are the sketches for the final Françoise?

I study his drawings, study
Bath,
do it again. I go to my Degas book piles and find more of his bathers, all of whom are hefty, not a single waist among them. And as before, there are quite a few drawings and paintings of Simone and Jacqueline but no sign of Françoise.

B
OSTON’S
M
USEUM OF
Fine Arts couldn’t be more different from the Gardner. From its grand entrances flanked by Corinthian columns to its ultramodern additions, there’s an overwhelming sense of brightness, openness, awe. Towering ceilings and wide sweeping spaces filled with both artificial and natural light flatter the artworks and allow the visitor to experience them to their fullest. There’s no clutter, lots of comfortable benches, and you’re allowed to use pens. Cameras even.

The MFA owns over seventy Degas paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures. About a dozen works are oil on canvas, but only five of these are on display when I go over. The rest are on loan or in storage.

My favorite of the five is
At the Races in the Countryside.
It’s a portrait of a young husband and wife sitting in a carriage with their infant and wet nurse under a luminous blue sky, which takes up the entire top half of the painting. A few tiny horses and tents are scattered in the far background, giving the image both depth and a cheerful attitude. Although considered part of his horseracing series, there’s barely any racing imagery in the painting. Degas was a well-known jokester, and I’m sure he was goofing on someone when he gave it its title.

In contrast to the airy, bucolic feel of
Races,
the other four paintings—two portraits of Degas’ father, one of his sister and brother-in-law, and one of an aunt with her daughters—are all darkly painted with rich, emotional undertones of sadness and separateness. While he never married and rumor has it that he had few dates, either male or female, Degas was supposedly a very faithful and loving member of his large, extended family. Yet, looking at the grimness of these portraits, one has to wonder.

But I’m not here to enjoy the paintings or to psychoanalyze Degas. I’m here to study Degas’ composition, his brushstrokes and painting techniques, his use of line, shadow, light, and movement. Although I have the original at home, my painting will be better if I immerse myself in as much Degas as I can.

Three of the paintings are hung in the Impressionist Gallery, one in the Nineteenth-Century European Gallery, and the last in the rotunda connecting to Old Masters. The galleries are adjacent, and I walk from one painting to the next, then back around again, and then again. I want to get a sense of the five as a whole, as the work of a single master, before I start studying their details.

As always, when I’m surrounded by Degas’ work, I’m filled with admiration for the man, with an overwhelming joy at being in this moment, in the presence of such greatness. A visual orgasm. I once heard an interview with a musician who said he didn’t get art museums, that they left him cold. He claimed he was too auditory and museums didn’t make any noise. I’d rather be dead than feel like that.

I’m touched by Degas’ artful use of asymmetry to catch the viewer off guard, to bring her in, then to reveal so much. In
Edmondo and
Thérèse Morbilli,
his solemn brother-in-law dominates the image while Degas’ sister is smaller, slighter, sadder. Yet the way she touches her husband’s shoulder, the way she leans into him, shows that she’s not saddened by him, but along with him. In
Duchesa di Montejasi,
his homely aunt is alone in the right two-thirds of the painting, while her two daughters are pushed closely together—whispering? sharing confidences their mother has no part of?—in a narrow slice at the left.

His work is astounding. The way he creates light from within and without, faces glowing with life where there is only canvas and paint. The way he captures movement with the tilt of a head or the hem of a dress drifting off the edge of the canvas. His use of dark and light values to create texture, depth, and shadow. How he seizes an unselfconscious moment of everyday life, like the mother and wet nurse in
Races
pressed together as they proudly gaze at the infant, then sends it galloping away.

I settle in with the paintings, taking notes on Degas’ brushstrokes, the thickness of his paints, his juxtapositions, his signatures, his well-drawn lines, and the saturation of his colors. Anything I can find that will help me better understand
Bath.
I pull my trusty Nikon from my backpack and shoot a dozen photographs of each of the five paintings: from across the room, from medium distance, from as close as I can get without setting off an alarm.

Actually, I do set off an alarm, but only once. A guard gives me an annoyed, reprimanding look, and I hold up my hands. “Sorry,” I mouth. This does nothing to appease her, and she begins to follow me through the galleries, daring me to put my foot across the line again.

My camera’s got a powerful macro setting, and the close-ups of Degas’ brushstrokes are almost works of art in and of themselves. Unfortunately, one of the characteristics of his earlier classical painting style is a lack of visible brushstrokes, but not even Degas can hide every stroke.

I take a few steps forward, as close to
Edmondo and
Thérèse
as I can get without tripping the alarm. The guard stands right behind me. I lean even closer to the painting, making sure to keep my feet behind the red line, and snap a photo.

Isn’t there someone in here more worthy of stalking than me? A kid with greasy fingers? A purse snatcher? A dangerous criminal plotting a robbery? Then it occurs to me that the guard is probably doing her job a hell of a lot better than I’m giving her credit for. In all likelihood, I
am
the most dangerous criminal in the building.

Eleven

As soon as I get home from the MFA, I whip the sheet off
Bath,
wanting to see it immediately after studying the others. As my eyes fall on the painting, though, my stomach clenches. It takes my mind a moment to catch up with my body, and I realize I’m feeling dread.

I drop to the chair in front of her. What the hell am I dreading? I remember my very first reaction to
Bath
:
This is not a real Degas.
But that’s ridiculous. There’s no way this painting is a forgery. Or is there? I think about John Myatt and Han van Meegeren and Ely Sakhai. It’s not as if it hasn’t been done before. And then there’s the missing Françoise sketches.

I stare at
Bath,
then close my eyes and envision the five Degas I just studied. I lean close and examine the paint. It’s fractured with craquelure, as it should be. Over decades, liquids evaporate and paint shrinks, while humidity and temperature changes cause the wooden stretchers to expand and contract. These phenomena cause tiny webs of cracks to form. And this looks to me to be roughly a hundred years worth of cracks, which is about right.