Not only was he an absolute swine with an abysmal sense of humor, but he had the nerve to walk out on me! Granted, he did treat me to dinner, which was classy on his part. And maybe I had gone a little bit too far . . . but that didn’t make him any less infuriating. Maggie would have told me that the only time a guy runs away like a thief in the night is if he has something to hide. And, might I add, he wasn’t doing himself any favors in the honesty department with the whole furniture-aging scheme. Or maybe I had it backwards. Maybe he truly had been offended by my insinuations, which might be because he was innocent.
I returned to the hotel, thinking a good night’s sleep might clear my head. After emailing the photos of the microfiches to myself, I opened them on my laptop and sat cross-legged on the bed to read the newspaper pages. Just then, I remembered the note I had jotted down about that photo of the masquerade ball. I looked over the scrap of paper, found the article, and started reading.
The Stanfields, headed by matriarch Hanna Stanfield, are one of Baltimore’s most powerful families. Hanna’s husband, Robert, a war hero who served in World War II, owes the family’s success to his wife, who is credited with making the Stanfields one of the country’s leading art dealers.
In a few days’ time, the Stanfields will hold an exclusive auction for the upper echelon of the art world, presenting masterpieces by La Tour (estimated at $600,000), Degas (estimated at $450,000) and Vermeer (estimated at $1,000,000) to buyers from all over the world.
Robert Stanfield met Hanna Goldstein in 1944, while the war was still raging, in her native France. Robert returned to the States with Hanna, and having fallen out of grace with his father, the couple first settled in New York.
In 1948, the Hanna Stanfield Gallery opened its doors on the prestigious Madison Avenue. Hanna started building the business with a number of pieces that she had inherited, which helped the burgeoning gallery break into the art market and prosper for years to come. Hanna Stanfield was no stranger to the art world. Her father, Sam Goldstein, was a renowned art dealer, with a clientele that included the Rockefellers and the Wildensteins, before he became a victim of the Nazi regime.
The Hanna Stanfield Gallery quickly rose to prominence. After the tragic loss of Robert’s parents in a car accident, Robert and Hanna settled the family’s debts and made the move to Baltimore in 1950. Hanna set her sights on buying back the family estate, acquiring mortgages that had been seized by local banks.
The sales continued rolling in and the Stanfield empire grew considerably. In 1951, the gallery opened a second location in Washington, DC, followed by a third in Boston in 1952. The Stanfield fortune continued to grow as the family branched out from the art world into real estate. They played a vital role in constructing one of Baltimore’s top golf courses. Hanna made a donation to help renovate the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, a sum so generous that the hospital named a wing after her father, Sam Goldstein. The family is also heavily invested in the large-scale renovation of the waterfront district, working hand in glove with City Hall. The Stanfields have also contributed to the construction of the new convention center, one of the city’s current flagship projects.
However, since the private lives and moral fiber of public figures are of great importance to our readers, we believe that Robert Stanfield’s upcoming run for governor warrants a second look at this prestigious family’s background. Many questions remain regarding Robert Stanfield’s acts of heroism during wartime, none of which have ever been confirmed by the Department of Military Affairs. Equally important are the mysterious circumstances under which Hanna inherited her father’s vaunted art collection.
The true story of how these precious works of art made it to the US has never fully been brought to light. Questions remain regarding the exact location where Sam Goldstein hid his collection during the dark days of the war, as well as how the precious bounty was kept out of enemy hands. Many Jewish families were systematically robbed by Nazi forces during this period. Who hid the paintings away? What middlemen helped the Goldsteins? How did the paintings end up in Hanna Stanfield’s possession? These secrets have been safely guarded for years, and their answers are still shrouded in mystery as the family seeks to exert influence beyond the city limits and gain a foothold in state government.
—S
While I didn’t know who the author was, my professional instincts left little doubt: it was a hit job, written with express intent to harm the subjects. Although the allegations and innuendoes might not have caused a great stir today, I imagined that it might have been different for that kind of family in the early eighties. I did some digging online and found a press release about Robert Stanfield withdrawing his candidacy for governor following a terrible accident—a tragedy that had befallen his family. The rest of the paper provided no more details. I knew I needed to find out more about what this tragedy was.
26
ROBERT STANFIELD
June 1944