When his Museum sends him to Milan to work on coordinating an exhibit, he is thrilled to go. Before he does his friend Esther Lindauer, director of the Institute for the Recovery of Stolen Art, asks him to meet with a Holocaust survivor.
Solomon Bezzecca has recently lost a court case where he tried to recover two early Renoir sketches he says his great-grandfather owned. One of the sketches features a man sitting in a cafe and Sol says it was his great-grandfather and that a young Renoir (way before he was famous) gave it to him. Val learns the Italian Fascists looted the sketches, tortured and killed his great-grandfather and sent young Sol to a death camp. Seventy years later, Sol discovers the sketches are being auctioned in Italy and asks Val for help. He only wants to have the sketch of his grandfather as a loan until he dies.
Val knows how Italian courts treat stolen art, but he agrees to see what he can do. When Val discovers his old friend Ulisse Agnello, a former appraiser at Dell' Acqua Casa, is the owner of record of the sketches, he hopes to convince him to lend them to Sol. Sounds like an easy task, but things go wrong right from the start. The sketches had been found by Ulisse several years ago. He purchased the marginal seascapes because of the wonderful frames, he says, but then he discovered the sketches. Now an art restorer has been working on them. Unfortunately Val knows the art restorer and has grave concerns about his ability. It seems Dante Zampa has a penchant for trying to improve the famous painters work with his own interpretation of what it should look like. Worrisome to Val.
When the Renoir sketches are stolen, then recovered the next day, Val finds himself in a dizzying maze of auctions, art theft and rightful ownership. An excellent adventure and a fascinating look at the world of international art theft and restoration.
1 comment:
Art theft... your fave!
Denise
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