Black Cat Weekly #18

REDISCOVERY, by James Holding-1

REDISCOVERY,

by James HoldingAfter he had dismissed his Friday afternoon seminar in Renaissance Studies and returned to his own office in the Fine Arts Building, Professor Ferucignano put in a long-distance call to the Honeycutt Gallery of Art in Washington.

“Person to person,” he told the operator. “I wish, please, to speak with Mr. Orville Carter, the director of the gallery.”

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Benozzo Ferucignano,” the professor said, giving his name the proper pronunciation which eluded so many Americans. “Mr. Carter will know who I am.”

Waiting for his call to go through, the professor reflected with a touch of complacency that not only Mr. Carter, but everybody who claimed to be anybody in the world of art, knew who Benozzo Ferucignano was: holder of the Rosario Chair for Art at America’s most prestigious university, consultant to many of the great galleries and museums of Europe and America, and undoubtedly the world’s leading expert in Italian Renaissance sculpture, a pre-eminence accorded him readily by most of the scholars familiar with the field. Unfortunately, Mr. Carter was not among them but perhaps, the professor thought wryly, he might make a believer out of even Orville Carter very soon.

Carter’s voice, when he came on the phone, was cordial. “Hello!” he said. “This is a pleasant surprise, Benny. It’s been a long time. What can we do for you?”

The professor said, “This time, Orville, I believe I can do something for you.”

“Really?” Carter sounded skeptical.

“I was in Paris last week,” the professor said, “and I stumbled across something that should be of considerable interest to you.”

“What was it?” asked Carter. “I’m a little bit ancient now for La Nouvelle Eve, Benny.” He laughed.

“I didn’t stumble across this item in a nightclub,” the professor reproved him, “but in a far more sedate milieu. The Louvre, as a matter of fact.”

“The Louvre! Well, well. You going to tell me what it was, Benny?”

“Of course. But not on the telephone. Are you free tomorrow morning? I can take an early plane down.”

“I’ll be here. Saturday’s a big day with us.” Carter paused. “Is there a consulting fee involved in this thing, Benny? Because, if so...”

“This is not a matter of money, please believe me. I don’t want a penny out of it. I’m merely trying to discharge what I conceive to be my duty as a responsible member of the international art community.”

“Your duty to whom?”

“To a fine Renaissance artist,” said the professor promptly, “and, incidentally, to the Honeycutt Gallery and the Louvre as well.”

Carter said at once, “I apologize, Benny. I’m fully aware that a man of your reputation doesn’t need to—ah—solicit business.” He laughed self-consciously. “Won’t you let us pay your expenses, at least? Shall I book you a hotel room?”

“No, thanks. I won’t stay overnight. Will eleven o’clock in the morning suit you?”

“That’ll be fine. See you then.” Orville Carter hung up a very puzzled man.

* * * *

A hot summer sun was striking rose-tinted highlights from the sandstone walls of the Honeycutt Gallery of Art when Professor Ferucignano’s taxi set him down before it next day. Orville Carter was waiting for him in his richly furnished comer office on the second floor. “Welcome to the Honeycutt,” he said politely. “We see you here too infrequently, Benny.”

“My university job limits my outside activities these days,” replied Ferucignano with dignity. “I do not regret it. Teaching the young idea how to shoot, you know...”

Carter said, “I couldn’t sleep last night, Benny, for wondering what you discovered in the Louvre that could possibly interest us to the degree you implied. You’re killing me with curiosity!”

“You won’t like what I have to say. But here goes. It concerns your Donatello bronze.”

Carter’s eyes grew wary. “Our Hercules,” he said. “One of our greatest treasures. What about it?”

“I don’t think your bronze Hercules is Hercules, Orville.”

“No?” Carter said, trying to keep rising anger out of his voice.

“No,” Ferucignano said. “And furthermore. I do not think the statuette is by Donatello.”

Carter was startled. He half rose from his chair, then sank back. “You’re talking nonsense, Benny! Although I can’t remember the details after all these years—and I wasn’t director then—I do remember that the Hercules was offered us as a previously unknown work by Donatello, put on the market by an English collector who needed money to pay his taxes, something like that. We weren’t foolish enough to take the dealer’s word for it, Benny. We called in the best man in the field to authenticate it for us before we bought it.”

“I know. Demery from the Chicago Institute, wasn’t it? And Gallagher from the Boston? And Helios from Stanford?

“If anyone could affirm a Donatello without a complete and accurate provenance to help them, they could. Why, when we acquired our Donatello Hercules—

“Please. Not the Hercules, Orville. And not, I repeat, by Donatello—at least in my humble opinion.”

“Humble opinion! That’s good!” Carter gave a bark of laughter.

The professor went doggedly on. “All the same, if you had called me in for my humble opinion before you acquired the piece, I could have told you then.”

“You were an obscure instructor in Italian history at an obscure college thirty years ago, and well you know it! Why should we have called you in?”

The professor murmured, “I had already established myself with my monograph on Verrocchio. I was not entirely unknown even then, Orville.”

“You were to us,” Carter said sharply, “and I want to know what this odd visit of yours is all about. Are you trying to discredit our Donatello out of spite because we failed to consult you about its purchase thirty’ years ago? I can’t believe that, Benny, even of an overweening egocentric like you!” He was trembling with rage.

The professor said austerely, “There is no need for name-calling, Orville. As I told you on the telephone, my only reason for troubling you—” Abruptly he rose and turned toward the door. “But let’s go down to your Hercules, Orville, shall we? I need to look at it once more before I can be absolutely sure.” He grinned at Carter. “I wouldn’t want to upset you unnecessarily, of course.”

“Of course,” Carter snapped. “Come on, then.”

They descended in a silent elevator to the ground floor of the gallery and walked two hundred yards over polished hardwood floors to the Sculpture Hall in the east wing. The Donatello Hercules, a bronze statuette about fourteen inches high, stood on a plinth against the south wall of the room inside a sealed glass case.

The two men halted before it. For a moment, neither spoke. Each was deeply absorbed in contemplation of the masterpiece; each felt a lifting surge of reverence for the long-dead artist who had cast this breathing beauty into bronze.

“Donatello or not,” murmured the professor at length, “it is a rare and wonderful piece, Orville.” He turned impulsively to Carter. “I would rather not have had to visit you today. I would infinitely have preferred to allow this lovely thing to remain a Hercules by Donatello, just as you label it. For who, save for egocentric experts like me—” he gave Carter an apologetic smile “—would ever know the difference? But, alas, one’s artistic conscience cannot be denied. So you see in me a reluctant messenger. A very reluctant messenger. Do you believe that, Orville?”

Carter’s expression was puzzled. “I believe I do at that,” he grudgingly admitted. “At least that you have no personal axe to grind.”

“Good,” said the professor with satisfaction. He took a small magnifying glass from his pocket, bent over and peered through it at the statuette.

“Don’t try to open the glass case,” Carter said, watching him, “or you’ll set off an alarm.”

“No need,” the professor said. “I can see quite well with this.” He straightened and stepped back a pace. “I am right, Orville,” he said. “What I suspected in Paris is confirmed beyond doubt.

Carter lost patience at last. “What the hell did you suspect in Paris?” he masked with some asperity. “You come all the way to Washington to tell me about it and you have yet to speak a single word of sense, as far as I can judge!”

“Patience,” said the professor. “Allow me to savor for awhile yet my small personal feat of detection.”

“Detection?”

“Let me ask you, Orville, were your three experts agreed that this bearded, muscular, bent-shouldered giant we see before us represented Hercules?”

“No,” Carter said impatiently. “As I recall it, Gallagher of the Boston thought the figure probably was meant to be Atlas, supporting the heavens on his shoulders.”

“Demery and Helios plumped for Hercules?”

“Yes. Demery for Hercules preparing to strangle the Nemean lion. Helios for Hercules bending to retrieve one of the golden apples of the Hesperides. Or vice versa. I can’t remember exactly.”

“I see,” said the professor. “Well, what I discovered in Paris proves that none of these three theories is correct. The figure is not that of Hercules nor of Atlas.”

“Then who is it?”

“It’s St. Christopher, Orville. The patron saint of travelers. And he is represented here neither preparing to strangle the Nemean lion nor yet to uphold the heavens on his shoulders. His arms, rather, are reaching up to steady upon his left shoulder a more precious burden.”

Carter stared at him, then turned to stare at the statuette. He licked his lips. “You mean the Christ Child?”

“Exactly. St. Christopher carrying the Christ Child across the river.”

“Nonsense!” Carter said with some heat. “In that case, where is the Christ Child?”

“In the Louvre, Orville,” said the professor smugly. “In the Louvre.”

“Impossible!” the curator of the Honeycutt began, then allowed his words to trail off into silence.

The professor showed his teeth. “You remember it now, don’t you? That lovely smiling Christ Child seated, as is possible only for the divine, upon empty air, and bearing the globe of the world in his left hand? He was not, originally, sitting on empty air, Orville. He was seated upon the left shoulder of your St. Christopher here.”

Carter had a rather wild look in his eyes, almost a look of appeal. He said, “But—the Louvre’s Christ Child is by Bellano, isn’t it?”

“It is. By Bartolomeo Bellano. A gifted follower of Donatello, it is true, but not to be confused with the master himself. As I could have told you if the Honeycutt had called me in...but never mind that now. You must face the fact boldly that your Donatello Hercules is, in reality, a Bellano St. Christopher minus the Christ Child which, unfortunately, is owned by the Louvre.”

Carter made a complete circuit of the plinth, studying the statuette intently. He made a final effort. “Perhaps this is St. Christopher as you insist. And perhaps the Louvre’s Christ Child does belong on his shoulder. All the same, the work could still be a genuine Donatello. Just because the Louvre has labeled its Christ Child a Bellano doesn’t mean it is a Bellano, Benny.”

The professor shook his head. “No good. I’m sorry. The Louvre’s Christ Child is signed, Orville; on the bottom of the globe of the world, held in the Christ Child’s left hand, two tiny initials—BB—which, you will concede, identified the sculptor Bartolomeo Bellano five hundred years ago, just as they do the charming actress of our own day, Brigitte Bardot.”

Carter refused to smile at this sally. “What made you link the Louvre’s Christ Child with our Hercules?” he demanded.

“I made the discovery sheerly by accident,” Professor Ferucignano said modestly, “guided in great measure by these new bifocal glasses—” he tapped his spectacles “—and by the newly installed brighter lights in the display rooms of the Louvre.” He paused, enjoying Carter’s obvious bewilderment, then went on. “I had not really seen the Louvre’s Christ Child for years, Orville. Looked at it, yes, admired it, yes, on every occasion when I visited the Louvre. But with eyes grown slightly myopic with age, and in the dim unfocused lighting of the Louvre gallery. Only last week, seeing the Christ Child clearly for the first time in a long while, I detected the clues which led me to your Hercules.”