False Impression (50 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Archer
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Revenge, #General, #Art thefts, #Suspense fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Missing persons, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Fiction
Well, perhaps
I’ll take pity on you, Stalker, and let you join me for lunch in first class on
the flight home.’
Jack turned to
Anna and smiled. I’d much rather you came to dinner with me on Saturday
evening.’
‘Your mother’s
Irish stew night?’ said Anna. ‘Now that’s better than first class. I’d
certainly be up for that.’
‘But before you
agree, Anna, that there’s something I have to tell you,’ said Jack as Mr
Nakamura’s car disappeared down the drive and out of the gates.
‘And what’s
that?’ asked Anna, turning back to face him.
‘My mother is
under the illusion that you’ve already been married three times, you have five
children, not necessarily by the three husbands, four of them are on hard drugs
and the other one is currently serving a jail sentence.’ He paused. ‘She also
thinks that you work in a far older profession than art consultancy.’
Anna burst out
laughing. ‘But what will you tell her when she discovers that none of it’s
true?’
‘You’re not
Irish,’ said Jack.
A
lthough Van Gogh
cut off part of his left ear with a razor following a row with Gauguin, it
still remains a mystery why his right ear is covered with a bandage in both
self-portraits.
Art historians,
including Louis van Tilborgh, Curator of Paintings at the Van Gogh Museum, are
convinced that the artist painted the picture while looking in a mirror.
Tilborgh points
out that Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, on 17 September 1888, after
buying a mirror ‘to help him with his work’ (letter number 685 in the 1990
edition of Van Gogh’s letters, and number 537 in the 1953 (English) edition of
his correspondence).
The mirror was
left at Aries when the artist moved on to Saint-Remy.
However, Van
Gogh wrote another letter to J. Ginoux (11 May 1890, 634a in the English
edition, 872 in the Dutch edition), asking Ginoux to ‘take good care of the
mirror’.
Van Gogh is
known to have painted two self-portraits with bandaged ear. One can be viewed
at the Courtauld Institute at Somerset House in London. The second remains in a
private collection.
From Van Gogh’s
letter to his brother, Theo, 17 September 1888 Copyright © Van Gogh Museum,
Amsterdam (Vincent Van Gogh Foundation)
A TIMELINE OF
BESTSELLERS IN THE AUCTION WORLD, 1980-2005
Year
Artist/Title
1980 TURNER Juliet and Her Nurse
1981 PICASSO Yo Picasso
1982 BOTTICELLI Giovanni de Pierfrancesco de Medici
1983 CEZANNE Sucrier, poires
et
tapies
1984 RAPHAEL Chalk Study of a Man’s Head
and Hand
1985 MANTEGNA Adoration of the Magi
1986 MAN ET La rue Mosnier aux paveurs
1987 VAN GOGH IRISES
1988 PICASSO Acrobate et jeune arlequin
1989 PICASSO Yo Picasso
1990 VAN GOGH PORTRAITDU DR GACHET
1991 TITIAN Venus and Adonis
1992 CANALETTO
The
Old Horse Guards
1993 CEZANNE Nature morte: les grosses
pommes
1994 DA VINCI
Codex Hammer Price/US$
7
,000,000
5
,800,000
1
,400,000
4
,000,000
4
,400,000
10
,500,000
11
,100,000
53
,900,000
38
,500,000
47
,900,000
82
,500,000
13
,500,000
17
,800,000
28
,600,000
30
,800,000
1995 PICASSO Angel Fernandez de Soto29
,100,000
1996 John F. Kennedy’s rocking chair453
,500
1997 PICASSO Le Rive48
,400,000
1998 VAN GOGH PORTRAIT DE L’ARTISTE SANS
BARBE71
,500,000
1999 CEZANNE Rideau, cruchon et
compotier60
,500,000
2000 MICHELANGELO The Risen Christ12
,300,000
2000 REMBRANDT Portrait of a Lady, Age
6228,700,000
2001 KOONS Michael Jackson and Bubbles5
,600,000
2002 RUBENS The Massacre of the
Innocents76
,700,000
2003 ROTHKO
Wo
.
9 (White and Black on Wine
)16,400,000
2004 RAPHAEL Madonna of the Pinks62
,700,000
2004 PICASSO Garcon a la pipe104
,000,000
2004 VERMEER A Young Woman Seated at the
Virginals30
,000,000
2004 WARHOL Mustard Race Riot15
,100,000
2005 GAINSBOROUGH PORTRAIT OF SIR
CHARLES GOULD1
,100,000
2005 YUAN
DYNASTY VASE27
,600,000
Source: Art
& Auction, September 2005
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