Deceptions by Anna Porter (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📗

both had requested her services to confirm that a couple of Renaissance paintings were, in fact, what they seemed. James had obtained a provenance, but he didn’t trust it.

“I will call him today,” Helena said.

“I had hoped you would,” Louise said. “I’ve also bought you two burner phones at the train station. They’re in the bag with the rest of your stuff. Will you be coming home today?”

“Not today.”

Louise offered her a small quick smile. “Saw your Hungarian friend outside,” she said. “He is not very observant today. Didn’t see me walk past him.”

Helena suggested Louise stay the night at the Hôtel Cathédrale, but Louise had already booked a room in a B & B closer to the railway station. She had always been frugal. Besides, she planned to return to Paris early the next morning. She had travelled a great deal in her youth, and she was no longer interested in sightseeing. Helena, who was secretive about her own past, never inquired about Louise’s, but during the six years that Louise had worked for her, some fragments had emerged. Several were set in India, others in Japan and Australia, Russia and Sweden. She had mentioned a man once — someone who had always brought her flowers. She was efficient, unruffled by whatever happened, and reliable, with no great interest in art except as a means of making a living. When Helena hired her, she had given “secretarial at the Orangerie” as her last job description.

Helena told the receptionist that she was checking out of her hotel, claiming an urgent business matter in Paris. She agreed that there would be no refund on Mrs. Vaszary’s deposit, went to her room to change into black leggings, a long chocolate-brown shirt, a short auburn wig with hennaed highlights, and black running shoes. She inserted the Swiss mini into her belt and the knife in its holster up her sleeve. She applied a pinkish layer of Revlon cover-all makeup, orange lipstick, extra-thick eyeliner and mascara, stuffed the rest of her clothes, wigs, and passports into her suitcase, and strolled through the lobby. She was pleased that the receptionist she had spoken to less than two minutes ago gazed at her with interest but no recognition.

She checked into the Régent Petite France as Marianne Lewis, an American tourist who would stay for only a couple of nights, then she would likely take a tour on the Rhine. “I would just love to see the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg,” she said. It was not until she was settled in her pleasant room with a view of a park that she called Christie’s. She told James she would accept his offer to come to London in a week and look at the painting their New York office thought was a Raphael, but, meanwhile, could he let her know whether there were some unaccounted-for Artemisia Gentileschi paintings.

“Gentileschi?” James’s usually controlled voice rose on the eschi. “You have seen one?”

“I am not sure,” Helena said. “But there is a chance.”

“There is always a chance,” James said, his voice giving away the effort it took for him to sound calm. “Not Orazio?”

“Some of her early work was mistaken for Orazio’s, but I doubt this one is his. Why?”

“The Getty bought an Orazio for $87 million. Artemisia is worth less. But it could still be good to have one to sell.”

“Will you look into it then?”

“What period?” James asked.

“From 1593 on.”

“Her whole life? Including her time in Naples?”

“Yes. There are a couple of known paintings from 1612, when she was only about seventeen. This Judith and Holofernes is stylistically advanced, so, if it is hers, I have to assume she had been painting for some years, but I can’t be sure, so we need to do a broad sweep. In one of his letters, Orazio claimed that she was already accomplished at age twelve.”

“I’ll check with Rome, Florence, and Naples,” James said, “where we know there are documents about her early work. She was much discussed even then, as you know. Do you want me to have someone go back to the transcripts of the trial?”

Artemisia had been raped by her father’s friend, the painter, Agostino Tassi, a fact not disputed by anyone except Tassi and the court. The legal arguments were conventional for that time. The case had been brought by her father in 1611. The charge: deflowering his daughter, thus besmirching his own good name. Artemisia was interrogated, tortured, her fingers tied to a wooden post and twisted. Tassi endured only some polite questioning, but he did have to serve a short time in jail.

“Yes, that could be helpful. It’s been a long time since I looked at the transcripts. There might be some clues there. She had been working in Orazio’s studio long before the rape,” Helena said, “and the trial mentions a dozen paintings to explain why she was in the studio while Orazio was absent. Even if we take Orazio’s boasting about her work as a twelve-year-old, I have always assumed that she was painting on her own from before the age of fifteen, I think. Otherwise Orazio would not have hired Tassi to teach her perspective. Why bother if she was not already an artist?”

“Have you seen it yet?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I need to do some tests.”

“But what was your feeling when you saw it?”

“That it’s a very arresting work. I can’t afford to have feelings about it. Not yet.” But James was right. There was always that first impression, even before checking a painting’s provenance, or submitting it to analysis. And that feeling about the Vaszarys’ painting was that it was authentic.

Helena’s next call was to Arte Forense in Rome. She had worked at the Rome laboratories when she was setting up a Titian show at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches. She had had doubts about a couple of the paintings, but no one had been willing to offend the galleries that had so generously lent their works. Andrea Martinelli at Arte Forense had been the only one willing