Feint of Art: Page 4

  Caught up in my strategizing, I almost backed into a dainty, well-dressed man with pronounced frown lines. I recognized him immediately, and not only because of his signature red bow tie. Anthony Brazil was one of San Francisco’s foremost gallery owners, as well as one of my father’s old friends. For a number of reasons, mostly having to do with my grandfather, Brazil had rarely deigned to speak to me over the years and had certainly never sought me out. For the second time that day I was conscious of my less-than-elegant attire. To add to the general louche atmosphere, by now I was sweaty and grimy to boot. I wiped my hands gracelessly on the seat of my overalls and stuck out my right one. He offered his after a moment’s hesitation, shifting a large art portfolio from one hand to the other.

  “What brings you to this neighborhood, Mr. Brazil?” I asked, eyeing the portfolio.

  “Annie. It has been a while. Might I speak with you”—he glanced at Mary, who was openly eavesdropping—“in private?”

  “No sweat, sweet cheeks,” Mary piped up. “I can take a hint.” She turned and loped off toward the bakery on the ground floor of our building.

  I had planned to track down Anton after Linda Fairbanks left, but Brazil seemed so agitated that I took pity on him and led the way upstairs.

  He followed, puffing slightly, then halted in my doorway and took in the scene: the wide wooden plank floor and exposed brick walls; the inviting sitting area with the faux fireplace I had painted on the wall; the skylights high overhead; the half-dead ficus tree; the jumble of easels, shelves of art supplies, and worktables piled with paintings and pictures and artifacts at various stages of completion; the smell of linseed oil and turpentine. I loved my studio, and most of my clients were thrilled to get a peek at a working artist’s space. Brazil, in contrast, appeared decidedly underwhelmed.

  “So what can I help you with?” I asked, annoyed.

  “I spoke with your father recently, Annie. Needless to say, we are all counting on you to stifle your grandfather’s most recent writing project . . .” He trailed off, and I remained silent, not wanting to encourage him in this particular line of thinking. “Anyway, I happened to mention a problem I was having, and your father recommended you, both for your talent and for your discretion.”

  I tried to keep the surprise off my face. I loved my father and he loved me, but our relationship was strained by history and temperament. It was hard to imagine him recommending me to anyone, for anything. “Really,” I managed.

  “I wonder if I might prevail upon you to examine some drawings that were lent to a—colleague. I’d like your opinion as to whether they are genuine. This is a very delicate matter—”

  I held up my hand. When it came to appraising possible forgeries, it was best not to know the particulars. “Let’s see the drawings, shall we?”

  I led Anthony to the worktable near the window, cleared a space, and spread out a clean cloth. I opened the portfolio carefully, feeling a familiar tingle of excitement.

  There were ten sketches, sepia-toned studies of heads, whole seminude figures, and clouds of drapery. I’d seen thousands of such things. Sketches were to artists what rough drafts were to writers. For every painting executed, there might be dozens or even hundreds of preliminary drawings, careful studies of one aspect of the final painting: a hand, a head, a sleeve. Before the invention of photography, a quick sketch was also the only way to capture the details of a live scene for replication in the studio. Some of the Old Masters were more prolific sketchers than others, but all left at least some drawings. The ravages of fire, humidity, insects, and human carelessness meant, however, that only a small percentage had survived the passage of time.

  As I knew only too well, much of the fraud perpetrated in the world of Old Master drawings was not out-and-out copying, for example, a pen-and-ink replica of a known Michelangelo sketch for the Sistine Chapel’s The Creation of Adam. Instead, most forgers drew sketches of new subjects in the style of a particular artist. This occurred for several reasons. Most important, artists rarely duplicated sketches, so forgery was to be suspected if two identical drawings turned up. Second, it was much easier for a forger to replicate an artist’s technique in a new sketch than it was to copy the exact lengths of lines and flow of ink of a known sketch.

  Finally, an artist might draw thousands of sketches in the course of a lifetime, not all of which would have been catalogued by art dealers or art historians. This meant that the discovery of an unknown Leonardo da Vinci drawing in Great-aunt Nellie’s attic, while not likely, was plausible, and the all-important provenance might be credibly established if it were documented that Great-aunt Nellie had once made a trip to Florence, where she’d bought some old drawings.

  Sketches were also harder to authenticate than paintings, whose pigments, canvas, and occasional stray brush hairs could be sampled and tested for age. And because sketches were perfunctory by nature, they often revealed less of their creator’s personality than paintings, which were labored over for months or years. Still, to a trained and discerning eye every stroke of an artist’s pen or pencil was as individual as a signature. This is why I felt certain that none of the drawings fanned out before me matched the character of the artists who were supposed to have drawn them.

  What’s more, because the sketches were attributed to such well-known artists as Gianfrancesco Penni, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Peter Brueghel the Elder, I had the feeling they were that rarity in the world of art fraud: forgeries of known drawings. If I was right, these drawings were a pile of worthless fakes.

  Loath to break the news to Brazil, who was pacing agitatedly behind me, I studied the drawings more closely to confirm my suspicions. At first glance the paper looked old enough, brown and brittle along the edges, with scattered wormholes and a few dark smudges marring the finish. Two of the drawings had been torn and repaired in the traditional manner, with rice paper glued to the back of the original like a patch. The watermarks appeared to be genuine. All in all, the forgeries were good enough to pass a casual inspection.

  But when I placed the sketches on the light table and examined them under a magnifying glass, I confirmed that they were recent forgeries. Modern paper, made from wood pulp by machines, has an obvious “grain,” which means that the paper fibers bend in a single direction. Paper made from linen in the traditional manner—the method in use before the nineteenth century—was shaken in the mold, causing the fibers to bend in many directions. Smart forgers got around this problem by scavenging paper from the endplates of antiquarian books, the backs of print mounts, or by drawing over bad—but genuinely old—sketches.

  I also studied the watermarks. True watermarks exhibited fine, hatched lines caused when a wire was pressed into the paper as it was shaped by the mold. Fake watermarks—such as the ones I saw before me—mimicked this process with an application of colorless oil or were scratched into the paper with a sharp blade.

  I sat back. These were the mistakes of an amateur—or those of a pro in a great big hurry. I was surprised that Brazil had not known how to verify this for himself. If all art dealers were schooled in the basics of forgery, it would save the art world a lot of grief.

  What bothered me most, though, was not that these sketches were forgeries. What really troubled me was that all these sketches had been drawn by the same hand.

  And, for the second time in two days, I was pretty sure I recognized that hand.

  “Who did you say you lent these drawings to?” I asked Brazil, who was now lurking on the other side of the light table.

  He hesitated. I raised an eyebrow.

  “Harlan Coombs,” he muttered.

  “The Harlan Coombs?”

  “Is there more than one?” Brazil replied tartly.

  Harlan Coombs was the dealer I had read about last night at the café. The one who was missing. According to the article, he was the perfect San Francisco art dealer: open and friendly, laid-back yet knowledgeable. In the past few years he had made himself and his vendors a pile of mone
y selling expensive artwork to newly minted computer millionaires.

  “I thought he’d disappeared,” I said stupidly, before realizing what this meant. Coombs must have fled with the original drawings and sent Brazil these forgeries in their place.

  In brief: Brazil had been royally screwed.

  He must have read my mind, because he looked even more constipated than when he’d arrived. “Yes,” he said stiffly. “He has indeed . . . disappeared.”

  In many ways, the art world was a throwback to the olden days when a dealer’s reputation was all-important and a gentleman’s word was a point of pride. Brazil would not have asked for collateral from Coombs; it would not have been considered necessary. But, as a result, Brazil was now out big money and his reputation was going to take a hit. He was probably keeping the whole thing quiet, hoping to find a solution before anyone realized he’d been duped.

  “I’m sorry, Anthony,” I said. I didn’t like the man, but he was obviously suffering. “These are, indeed, forgeries. Not even very good ones. Not that it matters,” I added hastily.

  “I see,” he murmured, and moved to sit heavily on my velvet sofa. His face had lost its customary pink hue.

  I switched off the light table and carefully replaced the forged drawings in the portfolio before going to the kitchen area and pouring two glasses of an inexpensive Merlot from my emergency wine stash. Anthony’s natty self-assurance seemed to have deserted him, and he sagged as if he’d lost his stuffing. I sat in silence, savoring the warmth of the wine while I waited for him to gather himself.

  Brazil took a sip and grimaced. Here in wine-soaked California, I always insisted, it was possible to find bottles of wine under seven dollars that were still drinkable. Apparently Brazil disagreed.

  He set his nearly full glass on the wicker trunk, where it wobbled ominously. “I had no reason to doubt him, you know,” Anthony said, wiping his face with a manicured hand. “Harlan and I have done business for years. Years! All of us sell to him. My God! This is unprecedented, calamitous, ruinous!” He tossed his silvered head melodramatically.

  I felt for him, but after last night’s events my sympathy was muted. We were talking forged drawings here, not life and death. On the other hand, I had just identified two major forgery jobs in as many days, which seemed more than a little coincidental. “I would like your help, Annie,” he said confidentially. “This is your world. Perhaps you could find Harlan Coombs or the drawings.”

  My world indeed, I thought waspishly. Geez, make a little splash in the world of art forgery at the age of sixteen, and people couldn’t stop bringing it up.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that world anymore,” I began. “I—”

  “I am not insinuating that you are in any way still involved with your grandfather’s, shall we say, special occupation?” he said with an air of sincerity. I wasn’t buying it. “But you are in contact with him, and perhaps some of his friends, yes?”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “Please, Annie. For old times’ sake. For your father’s old friend.”

  Nice try. Like I was sucker enough to think that helping Anthony Brazil would somehow earn me my father’s esteem.

  “I would, of course, make it worth your while,” he added.

  Now he had my interest. I hated to focus so much on money, but I was staring down the barrel of a major rent increase.

  “How much are we talking about?”

  “I could offer, oh, say ten percent of their market value.”

  “Twenty.” I figured I had him on the ropes, and I knew he could afford it.

  “Ten, and that’s my final offer.”

  “Twenty, Anthony. It’s a bargain at twice the price and you know it.”

  Brazil blanched. I was starting to think it was his version of a facial tic.

  “Fine,” he snapped, and stood up. “Twenty percent. I need those drawings and I need them soon. You have only one week and then the deal is off. Agreed?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, and Annie,” he added as he moved toward the door, “this must be done with the utmost discretion. The utmost. My reputation is on the line. I trust I can count on you?”

  “Sure thing,” I said, opening the door for him. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’m the soul of discretion.”

  Brazil grimaced one last time and was gone.

  I leaned against the door, thinking. Years ago I had vowed never again to involve myself in the underworld of art fakes and forgers. Unfortunately, I now had to make some money and I had to make it quickly. I didn’t see any way around it: just this once I would have to break my vow.

  One week to catch a forger. Luckily, I knew who he was, and had already planned to ask him a few questions about a certain fifteen-million-dollar fake.

  It looked like Anton had been a busy boy lately.

  Chapter 3

  “Repairing” your fake will add immeasurably to its worth. By painstakingly patching torn drawings and “touching up” flaking paint, you give the collector the impression that the artwork was cherished enough for its “previous owners” to pay for costly repairs.

  —Georges LeFleur, “How to Market Your Forgery,” unfinished manuscript, Reflections of a World-Class Art Forger

  I retrieved my assistant, a latte, and a gruyère cheese croissant from the bakery, asked Mary to continue working on a large fir dining table we were faux-finishing to resemble intricate inlaid stone, and set out to find Anton Woznikowicz.

  As I headed across town I sipped my latte and reminisced about how patiently the paunchy, good-natured Pole had taught me to achieve the coveted Old Master crackle, back when I was a budding teenage forger and he was still working with my grandfather. I could not believe he would have willingly been involved in Dupont’s demise. Anton had a hot temper, but he was not the violent type. He was more the sneaky, behind-the-scenes type.

  Still, I was willing to bet Anton could shed some light on what had happened at the Brock. After all, the list of people with the money, knowledge, and connections to commission a high-quality forgery and arrange to swap it for a museum’s original masterpiece was a short one. It was also possible that the Caravaggio forgery had no connection whatsoever with last night’s events at the museum, in which case I could concentrate on shaking down Anton for Anthony Brazil’s stolen drawings—thus securing my immediate financial future—without feeling compelled to mention the wily art forger when I spoke with the police.

  Invigorated, I circled the hilly, clogged streets of San Francisco’s Noë Valley and Bernal Heights neighborhoods, sure that I would recognize Anton’s studio when I saw it. True, it had been several years since I’d last visited, but my memory was pretty good. After half an hour of fruitless searching I lost all confidence in my powers of recollection, took a deep breath, and tried to think of other ways—besides my grandfather—to find Anton’s address. I had my cell phone in my pocket and fully charged in case Georges called me back, but I wasn’t betting the family portfolio on it.

  Who else might know where to find Anton? I angled the truck into a tiny parking space on Sixteenth in front of Mission Dolores and pulled out my phone. I stared at it, but it stared back mutely. Perhaps Anton had already been questioned by the police and fled the country with the genuine drawings and I was wasting my time. Maybe Ernst had finally turned up, the real Caravaggio had been recovered, and the murderer had been caught. But how would I find this out? The City’s art community would know; its grapevine put the UN to shame. But unfortunately I was no longer part of that community.

  I continued to stare at my cell phone, wondering what was happening at the Brock. I decided to try calling Ernst again, figuring I had nothing to lose.

  His voice mail picked up at both numbers.

  Rats. Frustrated and at a loss for what to do next, I watched a young cassock-clad priest shepherd a group of teenagers into the mission’s historic garden. I wondered what it would be like to be part of a religious order. I ki
nda liked the wardrobe . . .

  Okay, Annie, focus. Who else did I know at the Brock? There was Naomi Gregorian, although that was iffy. Not because we didn’t know each other well, but because we did.

  The year after college, Naomi and I had been art interns at the Brock. We spent hours shoulder to shoulder under a fume hood, cleaning paintbrushes with noxious chemicals; wore itchy polyester uniforms while serving canapés at receptions to which we were not invited; and ran countless personal errands for the upper-echelon staffers. And we did all of this gladly, in exchange for the privilege of learning the ancient techniques of art restoration.

  I was disappointed but not surprised when Naomi dumped me the moment I was bounced from the Brock. She had always known which way the wind was blowing. While I sweated to get my faux-finishing studio off the ground, Naomi grimly climbed the museum’s steep ladder from intern to art restorer. From time to time our paths would cross at a gallery opening or at the Legion of Honor, and we would exchange nods and a few polite words. If I called her, Naomi probably wouldn’t hang up on me.

  Probably. The Brock’s switchboard operator put me through.

  “Naomi Chadwick Gregorian,” a voice singsonged officiously. Chadwick was Naomi’s middle name, which she had never used until she became a full-fledged art restorer and snob.

  I found it all a little hard to swallow. Naomi and I had first met as freshmen in college, where we were both art majors. Our strained friendship took a turn for the worse our senior year, when I discovered that Naomi had fished through my studio scraps and included some of them in the portfolio she submitted to win a coveted slot as an intern at the Brock Museum. When I saw my sketches among hers during the celebratory art department reception, I debated raising a stink but ultimately decided against it. One of the many things my grandfather had taught me was to stockpile such information for future leverage.