Sixteen

Last week, I estimated I had ten more hours on the Pissarro for Repro, but somehow I’ve managed to stretch it into three days. And I’m still not finished. I try to focus on the painting in front of me instead of the Meissonier nagging me from the back corner. I need to strip the canvas and get on with creating Bath II. But I keep finding distractions that I must attend to first.

There’s research to complete on Degas’ paints and brushes, how he mixed his pigments and mediums, issues to resolve about the best aging techniques—even though it’s going to be a while before I need most of this information. Then there’s laundry and visiting that red couch one more time before I make a final decision. There’s e-mail to read, bills to pay, and of course, the fake Pissarro to finish.

And there are other things to consider. Like my decision not to tell Markel about Bath’s origins. Despite his arguments to the contrary, it’s clear that my days as a pariah are far from over and that my only chance of getting out from under this art McCarthyism is a successful show at Markel G. It really pisses me off, the spiteful way I was treated, and the thought of a full payback is hard to resist. It occurs to me that if Markel loves my work as much as he claims, wouldn’t he do my show even if I told him what I know? I dab a bit of chrome yellow on the edge of a flower. I’m pretty sure he would, but I’m too much of a coward to take the chance.

I step back, compare my result to the oversized Pissarro print taped to the wall and add one more dab. I reach my brush forward again, then stop before it touches the canvas. I’m at the point where I often start overthinking—and overpainting. A dangerous prospect that, at worst, can destroy a painting or, at least, create weeks of extra work. I lower the brush. I give the fake Pissarro a hard look, then drop the brush into a can of turpentine. A final coat of varnish after the paint is dry and it will be done.

Bath, covered with a sheet, sits on the other side of the studio. I hate that she isn’t real, but I dig out the acetone, rectified petroleum, and packages of cotton wool I bought at Al’s. I place the Meissonier on my worktable next to the solvent and restrainer and grab a couple of cloths. If everything goes well—if the canvas is in good shape, if the paint’s easily removed and the old sizing isn’t too yellow—I could be done in a few days. But if the situation is reversed, or if there are additional problems, I could be looking at weeks of stripping. After going through it in Ellen Bonanno’s class, I know stripping will be my least favorite part of the whole process.

If I were doing this for Repro, my first step would be to buy a new canvas and size it myself with some flake-white mixed with oil so the canvas will be ready to grab the paint. But to paint a forgery that can pass expert inspection, I need period canvas, stretchers, and sizing. Carbon dating can’t be fooled, so a high-quality forgery has to be painted on a canvas made at the same time as the original. And the sizing has to be kept intact because it retains the old fissures, the foundation the new paint will rest on. All Meissonier’s varnish and paint layers have to be scraped away until the old sizing is revealed. Once the canvas is stripped of these layers, I can start building my own painting over the nineteenth-century canvas and sizing.

A traditional oil painting is a series of layers: sizing, underpainting, glazing—in which up to thirty translucent coats of paint are applied—and varnishing. The purpose of this is to control the refraction of light through the painting. Stripping is one of those paradoxical tasks that is both exacting and boring, requiring intense concentration dosed with high levels of tedium. Plus, my back’s going to be killing me within a few hours.

I take a deep breath and bend to my task, a solvent-soaked cloth in one hand and a restrainer-soaked one in the other. I start on the lower right-hand corner, pressing the solvent to the canvas, wiping carefully to remove the paint, watching for any sign of white, which means I’ve hit the sizing. Damn. My left hand swoops down with the restrainer, arresting the solvent before it can dissolve the sizing. It’s a finely tuned skill to use just the right amount of solvent, which eats away the paint, but not too much, which can liquefy the sizing or even worse, the bare canvas. I labor on, pressing and wiping, and often, all too often, restraining,

Hours later, cotton pieces lie around my bare feet like a paint-stained pond. My head pounds from the fumes, and my backbone feels as if it’s going to break in a dozen places. But a solid patch of the painting is gone, exchanged for an unbroken sea of sizing—slightly yellowed, but nothing a bit of hydrogen peroxide won’t take care of—full of tiny peaks and valleys that will produce a spider-webbing of craquelure in the final painting.

THE CANVAS IS completely stripped down to the sizing in three days, and I’m hunched over and moving around the studio like an old lady. I think about going to see Rik’s massage guy, New Age Bob, he calls him, but decide it’s not worth the money. I dig my fingers into a spot under my left shoulder blade and press down hard. Not much relief. What I wouldn’t do for one of Isaac’s backrubs.

The two canvases sit on easels side by side. I’ve cleaned the Meissonier canvas with hydrogen peroxide and the sizing glows pearly white. This is important—more than important, it’s imperative. As oil paint ages, it gains translucency, allowing more light from the sizing to refract through it, giving the painting its depth and luminosity. Degas was a master at this, so the proper base is vital if anyone’s going to believe he painted it.

Charcoal in hand, I begin my task: sketching Bath on the new canvas. It’s the same process I use for Repro, and in a few hours, the drawing is done. I make a mixture of raw umber and turpentine and, using a very fine brush, go over the charcoal lines. I do some online research on Degas’ use of mediums while I wait for the paint to dry. When it does, I brush off the charcoal. Before me stands stage one of Bath II, a drawing in line and wash.

Which is good because Markel is on his way over to check out my progress and take a look at the new stove. The stove is a beauty: all stainless steel with digital wizardry and a door more than big enough to accommodate the canvas. I can’t imagine what Han van Meegeren would think of such a wonder.

When Markel arrives, he heads straight for the stove. He’s dressed down today—or dressed down for Markel—in a casual but perfectly fitted pair of khakis and a silvery-green shirt that plays up his eyes and well-muscled shoulders. “One big mother oven,” he says.

“Yeah. They delivered it yesterday. It’s going to be great. Perfect. Thanks.”

“And when you’re finished, you can go into the cupcake business.” He pulls open the oven door. “You could easily bake a hundred at a time in this thing. Two hundred.”

“I’m hoping the art business is going to work out.”

He glances over at my window paintings still hanging on the wall. “It will.” He turns to the two canvases and points at Bath II. “This Meissonier’s sizing?”

I’m surprised that he would even ask this question, but it adds credence to his claim that he hasn’t done this before. “Of course.”

“The drawing looks great. Really good.” He takes a step closer. “No underpainting yet?”

“Next step.”

Markel glances at the couch.

“Oh,” I say. “Sorry. Want to sit down?”

He takes a seat. “I see you’ve been shopping.”

“I couldn’t help it.” I run my hand along the soft red fabric. “It was 70 percent off.”

Markel tilts his head and looks at me with something between humor and compassion. “Don’t have to rationalize it to me.”

I wonder why I never noticed what a nice man he is. I guess I was too intimidated by the prestige of Markel G and his power as dealer-to-the-stars to see him as an actual person. I was younger then, too—and much more naive.

I sit down next to him. “I think I’m rationalizing it to myself.”

“That’s not necessary either.”

“Oh, you know, ill-gotten gains and all that.” I wave my hand airily to indicate that I don’t really mean it.

Markel isn’t fooled by my posturing. “There’s no crime in copying a painting.”

“It’s a crime to be in possession of a stolen Degas.”

“What if it weren’t a stolen Degas? What if it were only a copy? Would that make you feel better?”

I sit up straight. “It’s a copy?”

He leans toward me. “Look, Claire, if anything happens, which it won’t, my plan is to say I told you it was a copy. That’s why I gave you the $8,000 check. In case someone follows the money, your deposit is substantiation that you accepted and then carried out a standard reproduction. We’ll both claim I told you my painting was a copy and that it never occurred to you it was the Gardner painting. No one will be able to prove otherwise.”

I scan his face. “Is that what you’re telling me? That the painting isn’t a Degas?”

“If that’s what it takes to get you to relax.”

“Is it true?”

Markel rests his hand on my thigh for a brief moment. “You know as well as I do that she’s as real as they come.”