32. Unveiling
Henri Perrin was a man renowned in museum circles for exquisite courtesy, and, as Chief Curator of Paintings at France's premier art institution, he had long experience with the more ceremonial aspects of his work, but even his legendary forbearance was not, apparently, without limits. "My dear Cummings," he said, with an urbanity that did not entirely mask a cresting impatience, "I know that I speak for Sébastien and Isabelle as well as for myself when I say how very thankful and profoundly moved we are by the great pains you have taken to make us feel welcome and to guarantee our comfort. Dinner last evening at your charming residence, and now, this morning, this bountiful breakfast…" He swept an arm gracefully over the linen-draped table gorgeously set with the Jeffersonian's own special event china and stemware. "You have even, if I do not mistake, put yourself to the considerable trouble of procuring authentic French breadstuffs."
Charles Cummings beamed with satisfaction. "I had the staff order in expressly from Boulangerie Patachou. They're said to have the best croissants, baguettes and brioches in the city."
"Délicieux," Perrin pronounced, sliding his plate with its burden of shredded but otherwise untouched pastry toward the center of the table. "A veritable taste of home. And it has been a distinct pleasure to meet your estimable young colleagues." He inclined his head graciously first in Baer's and then in Bonnie's direction, exposing the smooth skin of his balding pate. "But, as you can no doubt appreciate, mon vieux, we three are of an eagerness to examine this intriguing painting of yours, and find, under the circumstances, even the smallest of delays difficult to support. You will not think us uncivil, I hope, if I propose we dispense with further preliminaries, however agreeable, and pass on to the inspection of your discovery."
Cummings regarded his old friend with a rueful smile. "Poor Henri! I have tried your patience most abominably. If we have made a large fuss over you, it is only that we are very sensible of the honor of hosting such luminaries in the field as yourselves, and would not want to show you, M. Beaumont or Mme Auteuil any less than the full consideration you so richly deserve."
Isabelle Auteuil, a chic brunette whose biography placed her on the shady side of forty, favored her host with a droll look from very fine brown eyes, and stretched her generous mouth into an indulgent smile. Introduced as primary assistant to the head of painting restoration at the C2RMF, Mme Auteuil exuded a quiet air of distinction, self-possession and grace. Given her pleasing, highly-symmetrical features, lustrous dark hair, and luminous, wrinkle-free skin, she might easily have passed for a decade younger, and was, by anyone's standard, a very attractive woman, though perhaps not the stunner she had been as a green girl. She dabbed daintily at her lips with her cloth napkin, set it delicately to one side of her crumb-strewn plate, and awaited events.
For his part, Sébastien Beaumont acknowledged Dr. Cummings' remarks with a lordly dip of his well-coiffed head. There could still be seen in his high, noble forehead, wide hazel eyes, column-straight nose and square, slightly-dimpled chin the remains of what must once have been spectacular good looks, but the years, roughly equal in number to his female colleague's, had been less kind to him. The once guinea-gold hair had thinned and gone dull, the skin under the eyes had sagged into puffy crescents, and the strong line of his jaw had softened and grown flabby. Trained as an art historian, he had parleyed a connoisseur's eye, a detective's persistence and a gambler's disposition into a very lucrative career as an art middleman and gallery owner, and had traveled the world over in search of lost, misidentified or overpainted masterpieces which he sold on, often at enormous profit, to the museum directors and private collectors who formed his client base. If rumor was to be believed, his specialization in late eighteenth-century French paintings owed less to aesthetic appreciation than to a personal affinity for the loose, licentious lifestyle they depicted. "Your sentiments do you credit," he said, in a mellifluous baritone, "but Henri has the right of it. The suspense becomes unendurable."
"Can't have that," Dr. Cummings said, with just a hint of laughter in his voice. He pushed away from the table, and, rising from his chair, motioned toward the shrouded easel at the far end of the room. "Baer, Bonnie, if you'll do the honors."
As they had worked out in advance, Baer and Bonnie took up positions on either side of the easel, gripped the lower edge of the heavy muslin sheet, and awaited Dr. Cummings' signal. When he was satisfied that the visitors had come to stand a good viewing-distance away from the canvas, he moved to his own vantage point halfway between the two groups. His eyes never leaving the French delegation, he nodded curtly. "Now." Bonnie and Baer, in one swift, coordinated movement, flipped the covering up and over the easel, unveiling the long-anticipated painting underneath.
The initial reactions could not have been more gratifying. All three experts stood riveted, their gazes snared by the image, a variety of strong emotions playing over their faces. The color had drained noticeably from Mme Auteuil's cheeks, leaving her porcelain skin, already pale, almost white. The smug expression Beaumont had worn all morning had dropped completely away, replaced by a round-eyed look of wonder, fascination and undisguised avidity. Most affectingly, a heartfelt "Mon Dieu!" had been wrenched from Henri Perrin, who stared at the painting with tears gathering in his faded blue eyes. Bonnie spared a glance at Baer, and found him grinning at her. Their Coupe d'amour had done it: it had passed the "first look" test.
Perrin was the first to recover and break ranks. "Vous permettez?" he said, forgetting, in his commotion, to speak English. Dr. Cummings waved him forward, and Bonnie and Baer stepped back to allow him more room. His two companions lost no time crowding in behind. "I am not so knowledgeable on matters of Lebrun's technique as Sébastien and Isabelle, but I recognize quality when I see it, and this, in my estimation, is not by the hand of some student or follower. Look only at the boldness of the strokes, the firmness of the touch. This is the master at work, confident in himself and in his genius. Would you agree, Sébastien?"
"First impressions only, I would say, yes, this has all the hallmarks one looks for in a Lebrun. The exuberant brushwork… the blurred edges… the fluid lines." He reached out a hand, and drew circles over the forest background with an extended finger. "Here and here, for example, notice how the clumps of leaves gradually shade into the billows of cloud, so the trees seem to transform by degrees into sky. That is characteristic of Lebrun's landscapes. Also, there is his particular handling of flowing drapery…"
He broke off at the involuntary gasp that had escaped Mme Auteuil, and, turning toward her, fixed her with a basilisk glare. "Struck by one of your crucial insights, Isabelle?" he said, with something very like a sneer. "Please, enlighten us. We are all ears."
Isabelle, her attention focused entirely on the lower right hand corner of the canvas, gave no sign of having heard. "Pardon," she said, addressing herself to Dr. Cummings, "Regnier's 1775 print reproduction of La Coupe d'amour, do you know it? You have, perhaps, consulted it as part of your studies?"
Dr. Cummings looked a question at Baer, who responded, "We're aware of it, yes. There's a reference image of it in our file library. I can pull it up for you, if you'd like."
"I would be most grateful." While Baer busied himself at the conference room's vid-screen, Isabelle explained, "The print reproduction of Lebrun's painting is not faithful in all respects, and it has long been thought that Regnier, in creating his etching, made some insignificant changes with the artist's permission so as to have, in some small part, an image that was uniquely his own. The most obvious departure is here." She pointed to the lower right edge of the canvas. "Along the outer base of the fountain."
"In that area of our painting, you will see the artist's signature," Perrin weighed in.
"Precisely. In the print, however, the signature does not appear. It is replaced by what has, all this time, been thought to be a detail supplied by the printmaker's whimsy: a small, essentially unremarkable flowering plant."
Just at that moment, the room's oversized vid-screen brightened with the black and off-white version of Regnier's Coupe d'amour. Baer zoomed in on the area under discussion, and there, slavishly reproduced down to the sparse blossoms, single stem and flaccid leaves, was the unprepossessing plant of the painting before them. "My God," Baer breathed. "How did we miss this?"
"I did not see it at once, myself," Isabelle commiserated.
"To be fair," Bonnie said, speaking up for the first time. "we didn't know until earlier this week that the plant was even there. That section of the painting was almost completely obscured by soot. The digital photos we sent you were taken before cleaning, so the plant was practically invisible."
"I believe Regnier was also credited with imparting a more flowing look to the fountain waters," Beaumont volunteered, "but evidently he copied that from this painting as well."
"And yet," Perrin said, "in the main, the print reproduces our Lebrun in all important respects…"
"Which can only mean," Beaumont interrupted, "that Regnier had access to both paintings while they remained in Lebrun's studio. The print was made available to the public in 1775, remember, so he would have had to see them both before that date. I imagine he saw them side by side, and chose the details that suited him best, creating in the process a hybrid of this impressionistic work and the highly-finished painting Lebrun submitted to the Académie."
Perrin looked from the image on the vid-screen to the painting on the easel and back again. "Mon Dieu," he said again, shaking his head reverently. "Proof. Evidence incontrovertible." He turned and held out his hand to Cummings. "I felicitate you, mon ami. You have done the impossible. You have located a lost treasure of the patrimony of France. Incroyable!"
A/N: I apologize to faithful readers and reviewers for the delay in posting this installment. I was obliged to undergo surgery a week ago, and while I am recovering well, I had to let certain things slide for a time. To date, I have been trying to post a chapter every seven days, and with luck, I'll be able to resume that schedule. Thanks for your patience, and for reviewing.
Speaking of patience, I have been asked to estimate how long this story will end up being. All I can say is there are a number of subplots that need resolving, and none is especially close, so... quite long, is my guess!