And herein lay Avery’s motivation for approaching him. The French government, the French painters, and the French-trained American painters living in Paris — they all coveted the same thing — American money. The rich Americans — the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans — were swollen with new money. To an extent the Europeans could only dream about, the Americans had a talent for making it, losing it, and making it all over again — in huge quantities. From the way they devoured the art and artists of Paris, you’d think they could find nothing to spend it on at home. They spurned their own artists — he thought of Sargent and Weeks — until by exposure on the Continent those artists had acquired a Parisian cachet. It was as if the Europeans had been nominated to put the Yankees through a proc
