Morelli explained, “As most men who speak or write have verbal habits and use their favorite words and phrases involuntarily and sometimes even most inappropriately, so almost any painter has his own peculiarities which escape from him without him being aware of them. . . . Anyone, therefore, who wants to study a painter closely must know how to discover these material trifles and attend to them with care: a student of calligraphy would call them flourishes.”8 One could fruitfully mine Morelli’s ideas to study La Bella Principessa, because as Martin and others revealed, there are many, many signifying details in the drawing.
Those who followed Morelli adapted his concepts in their studies. For example, Walter Pater, who lived from 1839 to 1894 and was considered one of the great art critics of all time, believed that the viewer must immerse himself or herself in the work and truly see it, without allowing internal reflections to muddy the view.
Pater wrote that the purpose of the connoisseur is “to define beauty, not in the most abstract but in the most concrete terms possible. . . . In aesthetic criticism the first step towards seeing one’s object as it really is, is to know one’s own impression as it really is, to discriminate it, to realize it distinctly.” He begged the connoisseur to ask, “What effect does it really produce on me? And he who experiences these impressions strongly has no need to trouble himself with the abstract question of what beauty is in itself or what its exact relation to truth or experiences—metaphysical questions, as unprofitable as metaphysical questions elsewhere.”9
The art connoisseur Bernard Berenson, who spent a long lifetime in the business and was involved in some of the more intriguing capers of the last century (see chapter 4), was a follower of both Morelli’s and Pater’s, and he strove to view art with a populist heart:
Many see pictures without knowing what to look at. They are asked to admire works of pretended art and they do not know enough to say, like the child in [Hans Christian] Andersen’s tale, “Look, the Emperor has nothing on.” Vaguely the public feels that it is not being fed, perhaps [being] taken in, possibly made fun of. It is as if suddenly they were cut off from familiar food and told to eat dishes utterly unknown, with queer tastes, foreboding perhaps that they were poisonous.
In a long experience humanity has learnt what beasts of the field, what fowl of the air, what creeping things, what fishes, what vegetables and fruits it can feed on. In the course of thousands of years it has learnt how to cook them so as to appeal to smell, palate and teeth, to be toothsome. In the same way some few of us have learnt in the course of ages what works of art, what paintings, what sculpture, what architecture feed the spirit. Not many feel as convinced of what they are seeing as of what they are eating. Just as all of us have learnt what is best as food, some of us think we have learnt what is best as art.10
Although Berenson pointed out that art lacks the urgency of food, he set out to educate the artistic taste buds of generations of art lovers. Berenson’s idea of connoisseurship was pure, and I have often wondered what he might think of the advanced technological measures we have at our disposal today. I suspect he would have been intrigued by the opportunity to investigate art in such a bold new fashion. He was known to have said, “Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.”
Berenson pretended to have an egalitarian view of art: that the masses should consume it as they do good food (although you wouldn’t find the masses dining at a fancy French restaurant). Thomas Hoving likewise took a shot at a populist approach when he wrote a treatise, “Becoming an Art Connoisseur,” for Dummies.com.11 Art connoisseurship for dummies is surely a stretch, but Hoving gave it a try. His basic, rather weak, point was that one must saturate oneself in works of art in order to appreciate and understand them. That’s a fine ambition for anyone, but a firm distinction must be drawn between one who loves art and one who holds in his or her hands the responsibility of authenticating it. (By the way, there are also Art Connoisseur Cruises sponsored by Princess Cruise Lines and a Facebook group called Contemporary Art Connoisseurs Weekly Exhibitions.)
We live in an age when the common “everybody” can aspire to be a writer, a singer, an artist, a chef, or an art critic. There are appealing aspects to this trend, but in reality the art connoisseur, like the scientist or the brain surgeon, holds an expertise that is beyond the ability of the untrained amateur. It is not a job for “dummies,” although I’m sure there have been some accusations that some of the practitioners are dummies.
The responsibility of the modern connoisseur is greater, it seems to me, than that of the Morellis and the Berensons. They had only to trust their own skills and interior judgments and follow the trail of their “sixth sense,” as Berenson put it. Today, a connoisseur must embrace technology as well and become learned in its ways. Resistance is futile, just as a writer who resists the computer will get left behind.
The sad truth is that even the most cautious museum curators can be blinded by the tempting dangle of a well-timed donation. I can’t help being amused by the saga of a man named Augustus Landis, a prolific American forger and pretender, whose thirty-year spree has challenged the entire concept of the connoisseur’s eye. Landis’s particular genius has never been the high quality of his work, but that in every case he donated the art for free—in the name of his diseased parents—thus dazzling museum curators who could not turn away, or stand to question, what they regarded as a marvelous gift. Upping the psychological ante, Landis often appeared at the museum gate disguised as a priest.
He has become the bane of museums, but what is his motivation, if not cash? Perhaps it is a deep-seated resentment toward the elitism of the art community. Or perhaps he is a frustrated artist who could find an audience for his work only when it was signed by someone famous. Some argue that he might be mentally ill.
He told John Gapper, a Financial Times reporter who wrote a piece about him, “I was awful upset when dad passed away. When mother went—I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that. I’d like to have had a museum named after dad or mother but I’m not a billionaire. Lots of people have pictures in museums in loved ones’ memories, don’t they? I mean everybody’s got a tombstone, that doesn’t mean anything, but a picture in a museum, that really means something.”12
In Gapper’s treatment, Landis comes across as a man with no malicious intent, but the art world certainly disagrees. To its members he is a menace and a waster of resources—although so far he has escaped the attention of the law, since he never asks for money. Still, in poking the elite museum world in its eye, he has created his own brand of graffiti; it’s just another way of recognizing art as beauty.
But the real question we must contemplate is why the curators were fooled. It’s not so much that the value was enhanced in their eyes because the paintings were free; it’s that they were so comfortable with the aura of snobbery—the pretense Landis created that he was from a wealthy family, the kind of high-toned people who donate to museums. The religious garb made it all the more convincing: a priest from an elite family walks into a museum, seeking to perform an act of charity in honor of his beloved parents. Gotcha! Perhaps if the curators had had the means and the willingness to perform simple tests before they were tricked, they could have shown Landis the door more quickly. But every curator, even in small museums, wants to think that he or she has that sixth sense—the ability to instantly recognize great art.
I can imagine a time not far in the future when every respectable museum and auction house will have versions of the multispectral imaging camera and other technologies to immediately eliminate the frauds. It is chilling to contemplate how many misattributions might come to light were the pictures subjected to the revealing scope of Pascal’s camera today. For this reason, I imagine the museums aren’t in a big rush to install the technology. It’s not that they don’t want the assurance that they hold the real things. But human nature being what it is, even the best minds can be a bit squeamish about proof.
What this whole debate around the Leonardo b
oils down to, basically, is this: Whose eye should one trust? I would not dream of asking the world to trust my eye, because I am, academically speaking, a nobody. But I can say the following in my defense. In the past thirty years I have had to “put my money where my mouth is,” as they say back in Brooklyn, where I spent tough years as an immigrant kid. “Put up or shut up” was the game we played, and I learned my lessons. From auction rooms, dealers, antique shops, and other venues, I have had to buy works of art with my own money, using my knowledge and experience. If I made a mistake, I had to assume the consequences. It was the school of hard knocks, but I willingly accepted the challenge because I knew that the rewards were potentially very high—especially in the field of Old Masters, be it sculpture, drawing, or painting.
Today’s auction houses, unlike those in the past, seldom hire the top people; they can’t or won’t pay the salaries required. So they keep on turning over the staff, bringing in new employees with less and less experience. Consider how many fakes or wrongly attributed paintings clutter museum cellars. There are several instances in which museums such as the Met have sold donated paintings that later turned out to be major works. For example, a picture donated to the Met and sold immediately, without further study, was later found to be a Raphael, and it was exhibited in Gothenburg.
Although it is not the job of academics and museum curators to take risks and immerse themselves in marketplace concerns, museums do cultivate relationships with dealers from whom they hope to make purchases for their museums—inevitably at a premium over the price paid, but only after the dealer has bought the work with his or her own funds and has given it an imprimatur as being worthy. If museum people make a mistake, they do not suffer the consequences of the market. Public funds support their errors, so they aren’t personally paying out of pocket. I say none of this out of resentment, but only from a desire for us all to put our cards on the table.
For myself, I’m glad to be out there putting my money on the table, taking the risk and hopefully reaping the reward, be it a material one or just the satisfaction of spotting something others missed.
I have been asked by many people what it feels like to have made such a discovery and how it has changed our lives. It would be an obvious understatement to say that little has changed for us since the news broke. I have been inundated at times by the press and TV stations worldwide. And this has undeniably been great fun and exciting—my proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. More satisfying, however, has been the knowledge that my name will, if only in some small way, be forever linked with that of one of the greatest intellectual heroes of all times.
In August 2010, I got a call from Milton Esterow, the revered editor of ARTNews, with whom I had become friendly. He and his publication had followed the story of La Bella Principessa closely, and he was preparing another article. I think Milton expected to find me stressed and anxious after all the controversy.
As it happened, however, his call to my cell phone caught me as I was walking through fields of flowers in the Bagatelle Park in Paris on a mild, sunny afternoon. The experience was pure bliss, and nothing could take away from that, so I let Milton ask his sharp and serious questions, and I was forthcoming and quite cheerful in my replies. Over the line, I could hear the clattering of Milton’s ancient typewriter as he took down my answers. I teased him, saying, “Milton, you should get into the twenty-first century and buy a computer. You’re a medieval relic!”
We continued talking, and Milton finally asked me what I thought of all the controversy. I said quite truthfully, “I’m having the time of my life.” My response was not what he expected, and he asked how I could be so cavalier.
I wasn’t entirely sure myself. Perhaps it was the beautiful day and the field of flowers. Perhaps it was something deeper. My thoughts traveled back to my youth in Brooklyn as a poor child of immigrants. I had enough inherent confidence to know that I’d do well in life, but I didn’t really expect to score big. I chose a career in art collecting for love, not money—and certainly not for notoriety. The immigrant boy still living inside me was at first incredulous to be in possession of a Leonardo, but little by little I started to believe.
From the outset, I thought that even if the work didn’t turn out to be a Leonardo, the process of investigating it would still have been a marvelous adventure. I was open to whatever might be revealed. And then, when the evidence of the portrait’s authenticity began to mount, I was humbled and grateful to be living in such a historical moment.
Milton and I had lunch a couple of months after our conversation. We talked about the story and the critics and all the insanity out there. But we also talked about his origins and mine. Both of our families had come from what is now Poland and had immigrated around the same time to the United States, fleeing persecution and pogroms. I remember my dad telling me stories when I was a child of the Cossacks entering villages and slaughtering every man, woman, and child. My dad had a scar on one cheek from an attack that occurred when he was only two and in his mother’s arms. Milton had similar horror stories of his own to recount.
Finally, our toasted bagels arrived, and as we loaded them with cream cheese and lox, I said, “Milton, you asked how I could not take all the negative crap to heart and be wounded by it. How could I laugh in the face of such adversity? Well, here you have it. Look at the real adversity our parents and grandparents went through—the life-and-death choices and experiences. That was serious stuff! We are so fortunate to be where we are and in good health. Everything else seems extraneous. So, yes, I feel thankful and happy, and I am indeed having the time of my life.”
Milton smiled at me, nodding. “You are absolutely right,” he replied. “Mazel tov, my friend.”
I meant what I said. How else would I have had the privilege of meeting so many remarkable people and engaging in such a thrilling mystery hunt? I felt deeply blessed.
I might have left it at that. But just when I thought no more manna would fall from heaven and no more revelations were left to be uncovered, a miracle occurred in the most unlikely of places, the land of my ancestors: Warsaw, Poland.
14
Miracle in Warsaw
Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.
—Leonardo da Vinci
By the fall of 2010, the controversies had died down, and we were in something of a holding pattern. The Gothenburg showing had been a phenomenal success, and we were discussing future opportunities. One day in late September I received a call from Martin. He told me he had a hunch he wanted to discuss with me. It was a long shot, he warned, but it might be the final stamp of proof we needed.
I sat up a little straighter in my chair and urged him to go on. Martin and Pascal had always contended that La Bella Principessa had been cut out of a bound book—some kind of wedding commemorative or other memorial, which was common to the court. On the left edge of the portrait, where it was jagged, there were signs of three stitching holes and a double vertical incision within the lower margin that appeared to be the result of a knife’s slipping when the sheet was being cut. Martin thought that the portrait had been excised from the bound book at some point and laid down on a panel.
Now Martin told me he had recently learned through D. R. Edward Wright, emeritus professor of art history at the University of South Florida in Tampa, that the portrait might have come from one of the four surviving versions of the Sforziada, a eulogistic biography of Francesco Sforza, which were printed on vellum. Each contained a full-page illumination by the court artist Birago celebrating various glorious moments of the family’s history. One of these versions is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Another is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. A third—the only one to retain its original binding—is in the British Library in London.
Of particular interest to Wright was a fourth version that was housed in the archives of the National Library in Warsaw, Poland. The Warsaw copy had once belonged to Galeazzo Sanseverino, the duke�
��s trusted general and the husband of Bianca Sforza, the young woman we believe to be the subject of La Bella Principessa. The book was signed by the miniaturist Giovanni Pietro Birago, and the Birago miniature contained within it celebrates the wedding of Galeazzo and Bianca in allegorical form. The inscriptions refer to the divine sacrament of marriage and to the young bride’s fertility.
Now Martin told me—mentioning again that it was an extremely long shot—there was a chance that La Bella Principessa might have been cut out of the Warsaw book since it contained the full-page illuminated miniature with an apparent depiction of Bianca and the duke, among others at the court, in allegorical form. This highly prized and elaborate vellum page was commissioned specifically for Galeazzo and Bianca’s wedding in 1496 and had clearly been added to the book.
“So,” Martin asked teasingly, “might not a second page on vellum—the portrait of Bianca—also have been added to the manuscript at that date?” Martin suggested that it would be interesting to use the evidence of the nature and placement of these needle holes to look for other surviving quires (pages) from the same codex, which, with other physical clues, might shed further light on the provenance and original commission.
He had me hooked. This was exciting news, indeed. I knew that I must see the manuscript, although to set off for nearly arctic Warsaw, Poland, in mid-December was not exactly a thought I relished. On the other hand, how could I resist? Kathy agreed. So we decided to proceed as we always had: to combine the business aspect with a pleasurable trip.
Martin had put us in touch with Kasia Wozniak, a Polish researcher, who was just finishing her art history doctorate in Berlin. He spoke highly of her, and she was fully informed of our Leonardo saga. She was invited to join us and help arrange our appointments with the various library and museum directors. We allotted ourselves three days for Warsaw—plenty of time to explore the city and overcome any possible bureaucratic hurdles to viewing the Sforziada. The Poles were understandably very protective of their few treasures, which had miraculously survived Warsaw’s many calamities.
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