Sure, my life was perfect. Except for that little “terrorist attack” glitch. “Um, thank you?”
She nodded and, of course, patted my arm, which I’d come to understand as the international symbol for “I’m sympathetic but still your social superior.”
“You should think about taking up bridge,” she said. “We have a lot of fun.”
I wasn’t quite at the point where bridge sounded like a life goal, but maybe in six months.
The sound of footsteps interrupted my meditation.
“So, Joan, are you still interested in polishing up your French and working in a Parisian art gallery?” David Weller, director of collections, said as a greeting, referring to Candy’s column of a few months ago. “Yes, I read CandysDish. I have to know my donor base, don’t I?”
“I was trying to get ahead of the gossips. And I think it worked, but I can see where it may have surprised you. It never occurred to me you read that column. Please don’t take it as a resignation!”
“I didn’t. Plus, Candy can get anybody to say anything. I’ve learned the hard way.” David had been at the WAM for decades, a well-regarded art historian who combined that with arts management and business savvy. He was confident and warm, but never chummy. It was hard to picture him getting carried away at any time, with anyone. He refers to himself as “the guy in charge of the art” and he was, from maintaining our current collection to acquiring new pieces. “But we did have an unusual call, and I thought of you.”
“Oh, really, why’s that?” I tried to make my voice cheery, even though my mood wasn’t. Final paperwork for the divorce had come through that week. In record time, my divorce lawyer had informed me, very proud of her expediency. I didn’t expect the legal finality to hit me so hard, but the end triggered random acts of sobbing all week. I didn’t want to cry any more in front of work colleagues, especially a serious and sober man like David Weller. “Did the Chagall stained glass acquisition happen? Are we celebrating?”
“Unfortunately, no. I believe as long as the owner is alive and kicking, we’ll have to wait for our Chagall. But I did just get a call from a dealer in Paris at Margot & Fils. Do you know of them?”
I shook my head.
“They have a small gallery in the Marais, and most of their work is done in discreet transactions. European royalty selling off some of the family treasures to pay the bills. Midlevel works of art usually, particularly decorative pieces, furniture, sculpture, and manuscripts. The business has been in the family for generations, that’s how I know about them. It seems they have someone interested in our Panthéon Sketches.”
My ears perked up immediately. The Panthéon Sketches were a treasure to me. A collection of pen-and-ink drawings that came to the museum in the early sixties, as part of the sweeping Duveaux Gallery purchase, an acquisition of about eight hundred pieces of European art and the New York City building that housed the gallery. Collector Wallace Aston had wanted to make a quick splash in the realm of European art, doing so with the purchase of a well-regarded New York gallery. All the art, the building, the reputation—lock, stock, and barrel—was acquired in a single transaction. Aston was mostly interested in the paintings, but along with masterwork oils, he acquired furnishings, decorative arts, ceramics, some ephemera, and many sketches of famous works. The museum had sold off the majority of the acquisition to cover the cost of the initial investment, but about a hundred pieces remained in the collection, most archived because of condition, age, or irrelevancy.
The Panthéon Sketches were the work of Jules-Eugène Lenepveu. They were never-shown pieces, due to their delicacy. But, because of my personal interest in Joan of Arc, I’d seen them many times, allowed to page through the collection like the latest issue of Allure. A museum perk.
Jules-Eugène Lenepveu was a barely known but respected French painter of the late 1800s who specialized in vast historical canvases. His work once decorated the ceiling of the Paris Opera and the theater of Angers, though, in each case, those paintings had been covered over to make way for another artist. His most famous paintings were eight panels depicting the life of Joan of Arc at the Panthéon in Paris, four huge portraits of Joan as shepherdess, warrior, and martyr and four friezes depicting corresponding scenes of Joan during the Hundred Years’ War. Richly detailed, vibrantly hued and skillfully painted, the Joan of Arc Wall is an unexpected pleasure for those who wander into the church in the Latin Quarter.
Unlike some muralists who worked on the surface of the ceiling or wall, Lenepveu painted on canvases that were then attached to the wall with glue. Like most artists, before Lenepveu painted the canvases, he sketched. The WAM owned these simple, delicate sketches, studies of Joan, at once both intimate and powerful, as Lenepveu clearly viewed Joan with awe and reverence. Joan in armor. Joan in peasant’s clothing. Joan clutching a cross at the stake. The sketches were on eleven-by-fourteen drawing paper, all the panels rendered both in pen-and-ink and then again in watercolors. Sixteen in all, the sketches were loose in a black portfolio case protected by an archival sleeve. The collection of sketches didn’t constitute a priceless piece of art, but for the few admirers of Lenepveu, and the many, many more admirers of Joan of Arc worldwide, owning the drawings of the patron saint of France would be worth several hundred thousand dollars.
My interest in the sketches has always been personal. My father had used the Panthéon Wall of Joan as one of the settings for his Joan Bright & Dark display, lighting up the inside of the church with golden light. Then he named me after the saint, like a devotion to the woman who had become a symbol of strength and honor to him. He thought of Joan as the one who led him to sobriety and the one who kept him there. I felt connected to the drawings on many levels. Sometimes I would remove them from the portfolio and lay them out on the worktable portfolio, just to soak them in. I wasn’t ready to let go. “Who’s the buyer?”
David shrugged his shoulder. “We don’t know. I spoke with a Beatrice Landreau, and she said the buyer would like to remain anonymous for now. Apparently, the buyer doesn’t fly but would like to look at the sketchbook in person, so asked us if we could bring it there. Of course, I thought of you to be the courier. And, if it sells, it would be a great first-person story to add to the lecture you’re working on. Here’s a case where it makes sense to sell off a piece of the collection. We’ll never show it. It belongs in the hands of somebody who’ll appreciate it. If going to Paris is of interest to you . . . at this time . . . the job is yours.”
At this time. That was kind of David, to be aware, but not obvious, about my personal situation. In the few months since the bombshell, the revelation at CandysDish.com, and the subsequent legal work, I’d spent most of my days at work and most of my nights home alone, barely leaving my zip code, never mind the country. My mother kept asking me about my plans, an unrelenting drumbeat for getting out of Dodge. Go to Paris! Go to Morocco! For God’s sake, at least go to Hawaii! But I’d taken refuge in work, finishing up my research that was now ready to go public in print and as a scheduled talk and video series. This opportunity seemed like a sign of something, like the trip was more than a work boondoggle.
I felt a pit in my stomach, but the phrase “at this time” echoed in my head. I couldn’t say no. I was ready for this.
“When do I leave?”