The Case of the Missing Botticelli, page 12
Hadley smiled her Mona Lisa smile. But she had no hidden secret. Her love for Luca was apparent for all to see.
“He’s excited about the wedding.”
“And what about you?”
Gerda knew Hadley too well. Well enough to sense her hesitation.
Examining her new Ferragamos®, which she could now afford on her increased salary, she realized her problem was more personal than work-related. She was getting cold feet.
Everything was going great with her job, with her new promotion, and the challenging work she was doing at the Massimo Domingo Art Detective Agency. The Signore was back in all his glory. Art experts from around the world sought him out for consultation. He was the darling of the media. Phones were ringing, business was booming. There hadn’t been much time for personal reflection.
“If you need any help with the plans, you know you can count on me, and Francesca would love to get involved. In fact, she would gladly take over the entire event.”
Not that Hadley minded Signora Domingo’s ever-looming presence at the office and in their lives. Surveying her large new quarters, she looked out onto Piazza della Signoria, teeming with tourists and townspeople alike. The public square was the gateway to the Uffizi Gallery, perhaps her favorite place in Florence, and Piazza del Duomo, which just reminded Hadley of her upcoming nuptials.
Il Duomo, recognizable above the terracotta rooftops of Florence from anywhere in the city, loomed large in the distance and in her mind. She was scheduled to get married there in a few short months. And she hadn’t even made a dent in winning over Luca’s mother. The woman was insistent that her son marry a nice Italian girl. Hadley spoke passable Italian, but with an American Southern accent. Luca had tried to introduce her as a girl from Sicily—the Deep South of Italy. But that ploy hadn’t worked.
“You speak Italian like a child, Cara,” Luca observed.
“So you’ve said. I’m taking Italian lessons.”
Then he recommended she praise his mother’s red sauce.
“Tell her it is the best spaghetti sauce you’ve ever tasted.” Mama Ferrari saw right through that. Flattery was getting Hadley nowhere. She couldn’t change who she was.
“You will impress my mother if you can learn to cook like an Italian.”
“Then I’ll sign up for a cooking class,” Hadley replied, pursing her lips. Italian men and their mothers. That was a phenomenon she would have to come to grips with. “That’s two strikes against me. Why are you looking to change me? I thought you loved me the way I am.”
“Of course, I do, Cara. My mother will warm up to you as soon as we start having some bambinos.”
“Some bambinos?”
“Yes, it will be very merry.”
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t that how you say it in America?”
Hadley wore a puzzled expression.
“More is merrier,” Luca said.
“The more the merrier?”
“Si.”
Hadley blew out a breath. Now was not the time to have this argument. She was wearing Luca’s engagement ring. She loved her fiancé, but she could tell she would have some tough decisions ahead. A houseful of bambinos or a career. Marriage was all about compromise.
Hadley frowned. Conversely, her parents were less than thrilled with her choice of husbands. To Hadley, Luca Ferrari was the whole package. Tall, handsome, good-natured, sweet, and sexy, if not a bit overprotective. But their idea of the perfect son-in-law was King Charles, her longtime boyfriend, whose proposal she had recently spurned. They were constantly haranguing her to return to Tallahassee, Florida, and marry a successful attorney or a corporate CEO or an up-and-coming politician, anyone who wasn’t a police detective or who lived on a police detective’s salary and who didn’t live an ocean away. Someone who belonged to the right country club. Did they even have country clubs in Italy?
Never mind that King Charles had moved on with Hadley’s best “frenemy.” Her parents dropped the hint that he was always asking about Hadley whenever they got together with Charles’s parents. They intimated that Charles would be happy to forgive her and give her another chance. He’d cheated on her before and now he was ready to cheat again. Once a cheater…
Apparently, her feelings for Luca didn’t enter into her parent’s equation. They wondered how well she knew him. In truth, she had just met him last year while attending a college abroad program in Italy and had decided to stay in Florence to work for Massimo Domingo as a junior art detective. She would have taken a job as a street sweeper to stay in the city and pursue her career in art history. Luca was just icing on the cake. But maybe she was rushing into the relationship.
She’d dated other men besides Luca in Florence. One, the son of a colonel on the nearby Army base in Pisa, had broad appeal for the weekly barbecues held on the base. After months of eating nothing but pasta and pizza, she would have done almost anything for a hamburger. There were other indiscretions. Too much sambuca may have played a role, she recalled. But, in the end, her heart had won out over her stomach and she’d fallen in love with Luca Ferrari, the Carabiniere who had arrested her for walking in the street and getting run over by a motorcyclist when she first arrived in Florence. Her beat cop had since become a full-fledged detective. They had that in common. They were both in the business of solving crimes.
A single bell chimed from Giotto’s Bell Tower, tolling the suspension of work for the lunch break at 11:30 a.m. Every day bells rang singly at 7 a.m., noon, and at sunset indicating “Angelus,” reminding Hadley that the clock was ticking and time was running out. She needed to kick herself into gear, stop wallowing in relationship self-doubt, and start making progress in contacting the families of the Holocaust survivors to reunite them with the artwork she and Luca had recovered in the villa in Venice. Hadley’s idea for the Uffizi to display the stolen works of art in a special exhibition had paid dividends. Because of the publicity, dozens of paintings were returned to the heirs of their original owners. But many more remained unclaimed in a rented warehouse in Florence.
She had no spare time to obsess over her wedding and whether or not she was making the right decision. She had important work to do. No time for second thoughts.
She picked up the latest edition of Massimo Domingo’s Pocket Guide to Stolen Art Recovery—Volume 2. Maybe there were some lessons she could learn from Massimo’s lifetime of experience.
Rule Number One: Think Twice Before Drawing Conclusions. If something feels or appears right to you, trust your instincts. Don’t second-guess yourself. Your first impressionisms (ha ha) are usually on target.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rule Number Two: Put Things In Perspective. Clarify the true value and assess the significance of each clue before making a final move.
~Massimo Domingo’s Pocket Guide to Stolen Art Recovery—Volume 2
“How would you like to take a trip?” Massimo asked, interrupting her daydreaming.
Flustered, Hadley removed her legs from the desk and sat up straight in her new ergonomic office chair. “I’m always up for an adventure,” she replied. “Where to?”
“Bellagio, on Lake Como.”
Hadley’s heart raced, and her eyes sparkled. Lake Como was one of her favorite destinations.
“What’s in Lake Como?”
“The son of an old acquaintance of mine, an art dealer in Milan, called yesterday. Bruno Lombardi. He has a client, a Prince Alessandro Rossi, who was cleaning out his deceased parents’ villa on the lake before getting it ready for sale when he discovered a painting he was unfamiliar with.”
“What kind of painting?”
“He claims it’s a Vermeer, of all things—Woman in Pearls and a Red Dress.”
“In Italy?”
“Apparently,” Massimo stated, “although the client has no records, no provenance, no papers that would explain why his parents would own a Vermeer. There was no mention of a Vermeer in the will. He’s not even sure it’s an original. It’s unlikely. You know Vermeer is one of the most widely forged artists. He produced less than fifty paintings, and only thirty-four paintings that survived are universally attributed to him.”
Hadley had studied Vermeer in college. The artist worked slowly, producing about three paintings a year.
“But there are possibly another six lost works, at least,” Massimo added, piquing Hadley’s interest. “So, if there’s a chance, however slight, Signore Lombardi would like us to authenticate it.”
“Can’t he just pack it up and mail it?”
“Hadley, if it’s a real Vermeer, we can’t take that chance. It could be priceless. Or it could be a worthless fake. I don’t have the time to spare. I’m doing a television special on stolen Nazi art. They’re filming it at the Uffizi tomorrow. But we need to move on this.”
“Imagine if it is authentic, what a coup that would be,” Hadley said.
“Odds are this is another fake,” Massimo said, shaking his head. “And I don’t completely trust this dealer.”
“Didn’t you say you were friends?”
“Acquaintances. Lately, everyone is a friend. He wouldn’t give me the time of day for years. You know a lot of art dealers were complicit in the German scheme to pressure Jews into selling their valuables in order to survive the war. Now their firms have become ‘respectable.’ But the things that were done during the war, you can’t even imagine.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” Hadley agreed. “I’d love to go back to Lake Como. Thank you for trusting me with this assignment.”
“Okay, tell Gerda to book you at the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni.” He handed her a thick envelope. “The particulars are inside, including Signore Lombardi’s contact information, his gallery and home address, the client’s name, and the address of the villa. I want you to go to the villa, find out as much as possible from the client about this painting, check out the condition of the work and, if the client is willing, bring it back to me in Florence.”
“Do we know the size of the piece?”
“Small format as usual—17½ x 15 inches, oil on canvas. Small enough for you to easily bring it home on the train.”
“Are there claims out on any Vermeers?”
“Not that I’m aware of. You’ll need to do the research to track that down. Find out if it has ever been displayed in a museum or owned by any other private parties.”
“Would you mind if I asked Luca to come?”
Massimo stroked his chin. “I don’t anticipate any trouble. Why would you need a Carabiniere along?”
Other than a chance to go to the most romantic location in Italy with her fiancé? “He was a lot of help in Venice,” Hadley pointed out. “Without Luca, that whole case could have gone down differently.”
Massimo hesitated. “True, okay, it couldn’t hurt. But I’m not paying for an extra room.”
That won’t be necessary,” Hadley said, smiling. She and Luca were sleeping together. Surely the Signore would know that. Why would they need a separate room?
“The shortest way is to drive, just under four hours, or you could take a train.”
“Yes, sir.”
As soon as Massimo left her office, Hadley took the envelope and walked over to Gerda’s desk.
“I hear some lucky person is going to Bellagio.”
“You heard correctly. I can’t wait. I’m going to see if Luca can get some time off and come with me.”
“A pre-honeymoon?”
Hadley blushed. That would certainly be a perk.
After she called Luca to see if he could arrange some days off, Hadley did some preliminary research about the Dutch Master. Auction records suggested that Johannes Vermeer painted a number of unattributed or lost works: a self-portrait, a painting of a man washing his hands, a street scene, a Visit to the Tomb, a mythological painting of Jupiter, and an early painting known as “a face by Vermeer.” Or what she was going to see could be an entirely unidentified work by the master, unknown in previous documents. But what was it doing in a villa in Italy, and how had that vanishing act happened?
Although he was an avid art collector and dealer, Vermeer never went abroad. She would follow the Signore’s lead and look for clues. There must be a record of the painting somewhere. If it was appropriated by the Germans, she could find it. Germans were mad about keeping records. And she would remain cautious about the art dealer and his motives. Trust but verify was the best course of action.
Over the years, Vermeers had been stolen. Could the piece in question have been stolen, resold, and kept from public view all these years? Hoarded away in the vault of a private collector, an art afficionado, away from prying eyes? If she could find a genuine Vermeer previously thought destroyed or lost to public view, the art world would stand up and take notice. Could she recognize an authentic Vermeer or spot an imitation? Tracking down the provenance would be challenging, but that’s what she was trained to do. And Massimo was depending on her.
Vermeer’s remarkable trademark use of a pearly light might help identify the piece. Or his signature color palette of blues, yellows, and grays. Almost all his paintings were of contemporary subjects, domestic interiors set in two rooms in his house in Delft, mostly women, often the same people, lit by a window on the left. As far as she knew, he’d only dated three of his paintings.
There was no photo of the artwork in the envelope. Coming face to face with a Vermeer would be thrilling and worth the trip alone. Of course, she had studied the artist’s works extensively, and she had seen Vermeers in various museums: The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and her favorite of his masterpieces, Girl with a Pearl Earring, the summer of 2013 when it was on loan from The Frick Collection in New York to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, in the Masterpieces from the Royal Picture Gallery.
She had to admit, she was unfamiliar with this particular painting. He painted Girl with a Red Hat, and there was a beautiful red gown featured in Girl with a Wine Glass. Could it be an earlier version of Girl with a Pearl Earring? Many artists painted the same scene over and over, at different times of day in different lights, or used the same muse or subject in all of their paintings. Pearls appeared in eight paintings by Vermeer. But this painting could be unique.
The chance to see a relatively unknown Vermeer up close and personal and visit magical Lake Como was an irresistible opportunity. Not to mention the added bonus of spending time with Luca.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rule Number Three: Don’t Get Bogged Down In The Visible Details Of Realism. Sometimes you can get too close to a problem and doubt what you’re looking at.
~Massimo Domingo’s Pocket Guide to Stolen Art Recovery—Volume 2
Massimo sprang for a private car—a Mercedes E class premium service—to pick Hadley and Luca up from the train station in Milan and transport them to the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio. It was a smooth but twisty drive with breathtaking scenery all along the way. The car deposited them and their luggage directly in front of the hotel, and the porter came out and took their bags. The view from outside the hotel was magnificent.
“Welcome to the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni,” stated the man as he ushered them inside. Hadley had been to Lake Como, but never to Bellagio. She and her family had stayed at a less expensive hotel in Menaggio, a little way down the lake.
Hadley refreshed the facts she’d discovered about Vermeer on the train. An innkeeper, running the family business, he was a Dutch Golden Age Baroque Period painter, an art dealer, and an avid art collector, but he died in debt. His wife gave birth to fifteen children—four of them were buried before being baptized.
It was likely the painting had been originally owned by Peter van Ruijven, Vermeer’s patron who owned many of his works, purchased directly from the artist, passed on to his family, who had likely auctioned off part of his collections to private owners.
An unknown collector had probably plucked the painting from oblivion and sold it to some wealthy patron, perhaps a royal. She’d need to do some digging to see if any museums, like the Rijksmuseum, had acquired it at any point in time. Had it appeared in any exhibitions? But what was the Italian connection? What was the painting’s fate during World War II? Had it fallen into the hands of the Nazis or Mussolini? The Milanese art collector had a sketchy reputation, but his son was now running the business. Was he of the same ilk as his father? Was he aware of how his father had conducted business during the war? Was he as shady as his father had been, or was his whitewashed reputation as stellar as it appeared to be? Had he inherited his father’s collection? Were they on display in his gallery or hidden away so no one could appreciate them?
To date, Hadley had been able to determine the following facts about the provenance of Woman in Pearls and a Red Dress. Her notebook stated:
Woman in Pearls and a Red Dress
c. 1664 oil on canvas 44/5 cm x 39 cm (17.5 in. x 15 in.)
(?) Pieter Claesz. van Ruijven, Delft (d. 1674); (?) his widow, Maria de Knuijt, Delft (d. 1681);
(?) their daughter, Magdalena van Ruijven, Delft (d. 1682);
(?) her widower, Jacob Abrahamsz Dissius (d. 1695);
Dissius sale, Amsterdam, 16 May, 1696.
Unidentified London sale (Christie’s), 10 May, 1861.
Collection Bellisario Family, Venice c. 1884, antiques dealer, sold to a private party and bought back.
Prince Fritz Hohenstaufen, Villa di Mare, Venice.
Anonymous third-party sale.
The latter dates of purchase were unlisted. The painting had been scheduled for display January 25-April 28, 1928, in Rome at the Galleria Borghese, along with Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Love Letter, during the rule of Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1945. But it never made it to the exhibition, and all traces of the masterpiece had since disappeared. Mussolini aligned himself with Adolf Hitler, a voracious “art collector,” so it didn’t pay to ask too many questions. That hardly surprised Hadley. Some twenty percent of the art in Europe was looted by the Nazis and well over 100,000 items had still not been returned to their rightful owners.
