David Dickinson - Death of an Old Master

Powerscourt felt relieved as he told the President that the Grosvenors, like so much of London society, were distant relatives of his wife’s.

‘It’s these Americans,’ Lambert went on, taking a gulp from his glass. ‘The millionaire Americans, the ones who own all the banks and all the railways and all the shipping lines. One of them, fellow by the name of Graubman, was in Paris, buying sculptures and paintings and tapestries to take home to Westchester County or wherever he lives. They say he was thinking of making the French Government an offer for the Louvre. Anyway, one of these French art dealers got him interested in fine champagne. Fellow asked where it came from. Art dealer takes out a map and shows him. “Why,” says Graubman, “that’s a very tiny area. You could put the whole lot into a small corner of New Hampshire!” The French Ambassador says that Graubman owns rather a large corner of New Hampshire. He thought he could make a new corner. In champagne. Buy up all the land and send up the price. The Ambassador says the millionaire took out a notebook full of figures. He asked the art dealer how many bottles of champagne are sold every year. He asked how much they fetched. “Look here,” he says to the art dealer, “in my country, once you control everything, you control all the prices. Once you’ve got all the steel, you can charge what you like for it. Why can’t we do the same with this champagne stuff? I’m sure we could make it for less money once we’d got control. Can’t see why they need so many bubbles for a start. I reckon” – he was apparently scribbling furiously at this point – “we could easily make a couple of million a year. Maybe more.”’

Powerscourt smiled. ‘What stopped him, Sir Frederick?’ he asked.

Lambert polished off his glass and poured himself a refill. ‘Numbers saved us all, Powerscourt. The American was all set to order a special train to take himself and his party to champagne country when the art dealer told him that there were sixteen thousand separate owners to negotiate with. At first he didn’t seem too taken aback. He talked apparently of the number of small steel manufacturers he had swallowed whole in his rise to fame and fortune. Then he shook his head. “Sixteen thousand of these French peasants,” he apparently said. “Some of them must only own a single vine, if that. I bought out over three hundred steel makers all over America. But sixteen thousand is too many. And they’re French. Mind you, I’m sure it could be done. Probably will be some day. It would just take a great amount of American enterprise and expertise. Integrated management, that’s the thing. Control the whole chain, from grape to bottling to distribution to selling point. What a lost opportunity!”’

Sir Frederick laughed heartily at his own story. ‘Now then, Powerscourt, to business. You said in your letter that you wished to talk to me about poor Christopher Montague. What a sad end to such a promising career.’

Powerscourt decided that flattery might be the best means of advance. ‘Sir Frederick,’ he began, ‘you stand at the very pinnacle of the London art world. From your lofty vantage point and with your long experience, you must have a better idea of what goes on in that world than any other man in Britain.’

He smiled what he hoped was a flattering smile. ‘I have been asked by the Montague family to investigate the murder. At this stage I have absolutely no idea what caused his death. I do not know if it related to his personal or to his professional life. Nobody could inform me better about his professional activities than yourself.’

Sir Frederick looked long at one of his paintings on the walls. Hector was being pulled round the walls of Troy, lashed to the back of a chariot, dust and blood running in brown and red trails behind the wheels.

‘I saw young Montague a month or so ago at the preview of that Venetian exhibition at the de Courcy and Piper Gallery. He seemed in robust form then. He asked my advice on the best place to stay in Florence. His book must be coming out quite soon. It’s on the Northern Italian Painters, a follow-up to his work on the origins of the Renaissance.’

‘Do you know by any chance what he was working on at the time of his death?’ asked Powerscourt. ‘Even his sister couldn’t tell me.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that,’ said Sir Frederick.

‘Was his work good? What was your opinion of it?’ asked Powerscourt.

Sir Frederick Lambert paused before he replied. ‘It is quite unusual in my profession for the old to praise the young, Powerscourt,’ he said. ‘Most of the time we think they are trying to destroy our reputations, the young steers battling for the leadership of the pack. But Christopher Montague was good. He was very good. I think he could have become the most distinguished scholar of his generation. The world of art is widening. More and more people want to know about it. Montague could write in a way that appealed to the intelligent public as much as it did to scholars.’

‘But surely that couldn’t have caused his death?’ said Powerscourt. ‘Surely nobody gets killed because they may become the foremost scholar in the country?’

Sir Frederick Lambert paused again. He looked closely at Powerscourt’s face. ‘No,’ he said finally, ‘that’s how it would seem. That’s how it would appear. Maybe you should think of the world of art in London as being like some masterpiece of the High Renaissance. You stare, entranced by the drama of the scene, the gorgeous colours, the depiction of character, the composition of the work. But few people stop to think about the time the artist has devoted to creating that particular illusion, the months, even years spent in bewitching the eye of the beholder.’

Sir Frederick pulled a small book from the shelves behind him. He riffled through the pages, searching for the passage he wanted.

‘This is Durer writing to a friend called Jacob Heller about one of his own paintings. “And when I come over to you, say in one or two or three years’ time, the picture must be taken down to see if it has dried out, and then I will varnish it anew with a special varnish that no one else can make; it will then last another hundred years longer than it would before. But don’t let anyone else varnish it. All other varnishes are yellow and the picture would be ruined for you. And if a thing on which I have spent over a year’s work were ruined, it would be grief to me.”’

Sir Frederick took off his spectacles. ‘See the care, the concern, to maintain the illusion. Titian once went all the way back from Venice to Ferrara, quite a journey in those times, to readjust the final varnish on his Bacchus and Ariadne now on display in our own National Gallery. The art world, the dealers, the restorers, the curators in their galleries love to present themselves like those paintings, the glossy surface, the impeccable clothes, the illusion of perfection. It’s as if they hope some small particles of the glories of the past will rub off on to their own shoulders. But underneath, it is quite different. Beneath the surface, behind the fine paint and the varnish, there lurks a different world. Sometimes long ago, when painters mixed their own paints rather than buying them in the shops, trying no doubt for ever more dramatic results, they would invent a paint that nobody had ever tried before. But the outcome could be disastrous. The air, the dust, the surrounding atmosphere would erode the colours. After thirty or forty years, only the canvas would remain. The image upon it had vanished, like the smile of the Cheshire cat. So to a newcomer to the art world, I would repeat the words of Horace, caveat emptor , let the buyer beware. All is not what it seems.’