Portrait of an Unknown Woman (Gabriel Allon #22) (17)

“So do many art dealers. They generally select the one that will earn them the most money.” Gabriel drew his phone, snapped a photograph of the woman’s face, and enlarged the image.

“Are you looking for something in particular?”

“The pattern of the surface cracks.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No,” said Gabriel. “No problem at all.”





11

Villa Bérrangar




Together they lifted the painting from its hangers and carried it into the next room, where the natural light was more abundant. There Gabriel removed it from its frame and subjected it to a preliminary examination, starting with the image itself—a three-quarter-length portrait of a young woman, late twenties or early thirties, wearing a gown of gold silk trimmed in white lace. The garment was identical to the one worn by the woman in Julian’s version of the painting, though the color was less vibrant and the subtle folds and wrinkles in the fabric were less persuasively rendered. The subject’s hands were awkwardly arranged, her gaze vacant. The artist, whoever he was, had failed to achieve the lifelike penetration of character for which Anthony van Dyck, among the most sought-after portraitists of his day, was renowned.

Gabriel turned over the painting and examined the back of the canvas. It was consistent with other seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings he had restored. So, too, was the stretcher. It looked to be the original woodwork, with the addition of two twentieth-century horizontal reinforcements. In short, there was nothing out of the ordinary or suspicious. By all outward appearances, the painting was a copy of the original Van Dyck portrait that Julian had sold to Phillip Somerset, the New York art investor, for the sum of six and a half million pounds.

There was, however, one glaring problem.

Both works had emerged from the same gallery in the Eighth Arrondissement of Paris, thirty-four years apart.

Gabriel propped the Bérrangar family’s version of the painting against the coffee table and sat down next to Juliette Lagarde. After a silence she asked, “Who do you suppose she was, our unknown woman?”

“That depends on where she was painted. Van Dyck maintained successful studios in both London and Antwerp and shuttled between them. The London studio was known as the beauty shop. It was a rather well-oiled machine.”

“How much of the portraits did he actually paint?”

“Usually, just the head and face. He made no attempt to flatter his subjects by altering their appearance, which made him somewhat controversial. We think he produced about two hundred portraits, but some art historians believe the real number is closer to five hundred. He had so many followers and admirers that authentication can be a tricky business.”

“But not for you?”

“Sir Anthony and I are well acquainted.”

Juliette Lagarde turned to the painting. “She looks Dutch or Flemish rather than English.”

“I agree.”

“She was a rich man’s wife or daughter?”

“Or mistress,” suggested Gabriel. “In fact, she might well have been one of Van Dyck’s lovers. He had a lot of them.”

“Painters,” said Juliette Lagarde with mock disdain, and added tea to Gabriel’s cup. “So let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Anthony van Dyck painted his original portrait of our unknown woman sometime in the sixteen forties.”

“Let’s,” agreed Gabriel.

She nodded toward the frameless canvas. “So who painted that one? And when?”

“If he was a so-called follower of Van Dyck, he was someone who worked in Van Dyck’s style but wasn’t necessarily a member of his immediate circle.”

“A nobody? Is that what you’re saying?”

“If this piece is representative of his oeuvre, I doubt he was terribly successful.”

“How would he have gone about it?”

“Copying a painting? He might have attempted to do it freehand. But if I were in his shoes, I would have traced Van Dyck’s original and then transferred that image to a canvas of the same dimensions.”

“How would you have accomplished that in the seventeenth century?”

“I would have started by poking tiny holes along the lines of my tracing. Then I would have laid the paper atop my ground and sprinkled it with charcoal dust, leaving a ghostly but geometrically accurate rendering of Van Dyck’s original.”

“An underdrawing?”

“Correct.”

“And then?”

“I would have prepared my palette and started to paint.”

“With the original close at hand?”

“It was probably on a nearby easel.”

“So the artist forged it?”

“It would have only been a forgery if he had tried to sell his version as an original Van Dyck.”

“Have you ever done it?” asked Juliette Lagarde.

“Copied a painting?”

“No, Monsieur Allon. Forged one.”

“I’m an art conservator,” said Gabriel with a smile. “There are some critics of our profession who claim that we restorers forge paintings all the time.”

The room had turned suddenly cold. Juliette Lagarde closed the French doors and looked on while Gabriel secured the painting to its frame. Together they carried it into the adjoining room and returned it to its place on the wall.