David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

‘They wouldn’t take a hundred grand for it now? Cash rather than stock options?’ McCracken asked without much hope. Piper assured him that the Raphael was not for sale. Sadly he informed the American that not even cash would make the gallery part with it, so popular had it become. But inwardly Piper rejoiced. McCracken, if not completely hooked, had swallowed a fairly hefty section of bait. It only remained to bring the fish ashore.

And there he was now, in a bright check suit and brightly polished brown brogues, advancing towards the front door of de Courcy and Piper.

‘Mr McCracken, how very kind of you to call upon us in our humble gallery!’ Piper was his normal effusive self.

‘Kind of you to invite me,’ said McCracken, leaving his coat with a porter in the hall.

Piper said he proposed to take his friend round the Venetian exhibition still on show. He had closed the gallery to the public for the morning. And then, said Piper, taking McCracken by the arm to steer him towards the Italians, then he had something very special to show him in the private viewing area on the top floor. Nothing, Piper assured McCracken, was for sale. All the items on display were marked down elsewhere.

At first everything went well. William P. McCracken was much taken by the portraits. ‘Seems to me, Mr Piper,’ he said, staring at a Portrait of a Man attributed to Titian, ‘that human nature doesn’t change very much over the years. No, sir. Man over there looks rather like a character I came across in business some years ago. Bastard tried to close down my railroad. Damned near succeeded too.’

Then disaster struck. They had turned a corner and arrived at Piper’s favourite painting in the exhibition, described as the Sleeping Venus by Giorgione. The background was an idyllic Italian landscape, a plain in the centre with some distant mountains. On the right a small town in brown climbed lazily up a hill. Lying across the centre of the picture on a satin sheet with a dark red pillow was a woman. She was completely naked. Sensuous and sensual, the sleeping Venus looked as though she had dropped down from heaven for a peaceful afternoon nap in the Italian countryside.

Piper was about to launch himself on another of his panegyrics. Afterwards he thanked God he had waited, as he said to himself, for the beauty of the painting to sink in.

William P. McCracken turned rather red. He moved away from the picture and strode back into the other room. ‘Mr Piper,’ he said, ‘I am deeply shocked. I am, I would have you know, the senior elder of the Third Presbyterian Church on Lincoln Street in Concord, Massachusetts. Yes, sir. I cannot tell you what the reaction of my fellow elders would be if they knew I was the possessor of such a painting. The Third Presbyterian would not like it at all. And Mrs McCracken and the Misses McCracken, why sir, they would be shocked to the centre of their being. The Good Lord did not make woman to lie about the countryside without a stitch on.’

Privately William Alaric Piper was appalled at the hypocrisy of these American millionaires. He felt sure that they broke at least three of the Ten Commandments every day of their working lives. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor his railroad lines, nor his steel plant nor his banks, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. He wanted to tell McCracken that the same artist who painted the Sleeping Venus had painted some of the most beautiful Madonnas in the world. But he did not. He knew he had no choice but to abase himself before the false gods of the Third Presbyterian of Lincoln Street in Concord, Massachusetts.

‘Forgive me, Mr McCracken, please forgive me. I have no wish, no wish at all, to offend your religious beliefs or those of your family and friends in Concord. Perhaps I should have warned you beforehand that sometimes these Renaissance artists painted people in the nude. Your customs are different from ours. Your view of what is acceptable is different from ours. We must respect that. Please forgive me.’

McCracken smiled. ‘No need to apologize, my friend. We shall agree to differ. Maybe times will change and my fellow countrymen will come to adopt the different values of Europe. We shall see. But come, you have something else to show me on the top floor, I believe.’

‘Of course.’ Piper felt relieved. His eternal optimism returned as he led McCracken up to the private viewing room on the top floor. Piper took a large bunch of keys from his pocket and opened the door. The room was almost completely dark. Deep red velvet curtains were drawn tightly against the morning sun of Old Bond Street. Piper pressed a switch. It was like a shrine. Placed at the far end of the room on a large easel draped with velvet was the Hammond-Burke Holy Family. The lights played delicately on the curves and the colours of Raphael’s masterpiece, originally meant to hang on the walls of an Italian church, now waiting patiently in the top floor of a London gallery to captivate American tycoons and separate them from their dollars.

‘Isn’t it beautiful! Isn’t it divine!’ whispered Piper, praying that the elders of the Third Presbyterian didn’t believe in the commandment about not making any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath. The Madonna looked down with a practical, maternal love at the child beneath her. The sheep had a contemplative air, looking steadily out of the picture to the world outside. Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. The waters of the lake behind the Holy Family were calm, the trees around the edge casting long shadows across the surface. The horrors of the Agony in the Garden, the hill of Golgotha, the nails being driven into the Cross were far in the future. Piper waited to see what McCracken would say.

‘Mr Piper,’ he began, ‘you said you had something special up here. Boy, you certainly have. Is this for sale?’

Piper shook his head slowly. He knew he could get a splendid price right here and now. But he needed McCracken to want the painting so much that it hurt. He wanted him to lie in his bed at night aching to own it, to possess it, to take this European glory back across the Atlantic. It couldn’t be made easy for him. But once he had felt the lure, almost the disease of collecting, he would come back for more.

‘I am bound to offer it to another,’ said Piper sadly. ‘Believe me, Mr McCracken, if there was any way I could let you have this picture, particularly after the offence I caused you downstairs, I would do so.’

‘Eighty thousand pounds, Mr Piper. That’s my offer. Eighty thousand pounds. Cash, not stock. You said that Raphael in the National Gallery went for seventy thousand pounds. Let nobody say that William P. McCracken doesn’t offer a fair price.’

‘All I can do,’ said Piper, wringing his hands, ‘ – how difficult this is, how much I hate to disappoint you – is to speak to the other party and get back to you.’

‘Can you do that this afternoon?’ Piper shook his head. ‘Tomorrow?’ Piper still shook his head. ‘Two or three days?’ Again William Alaric Piper shook his head. The longer William P. McCracken was left to wait, the greater would be his desire to possess the Raphael, the greater the possibility of future sales.

‘I shall get back to you as fast as I can. I cannot say when that might be. But I shall make it as quick as I can.’

Piper turned off the lights and led the way downstairs. The lights faded quite slowly. For a long time the Madonna’s features glowed out of the frame. Then her face and her halo slowly vanished from sight. Raphael’s Holy Family waited in the darkness for more pilgrims to pay tribute to their beauty.