It was a good day. Prices were high. The Veronese went to a major American gallery for more than double the estimate. The Michele di Rodolfo caused a few muted gasps as it went for four times the estimate.
As the last twenty minutes came into view he noticed Reggie Fanshawe slip into a seat at the rear and, as agreed, well to one side. As the last lot in the catalogue went under the hammer, Slade announced to a depleted hall: ‘There is one extra item, not in your catalogues. A latecomer, after we had gone to press.’
A porter solemnly walked forward and placed a very grubby painting in a chipped gilt frame on the easel. Several heads craned forward to try to make out what it represented through all the grime covering the images.
‘A bit of a mystery. Probably Florentine, tempera on board, some kind of a devotional scene. Artist unknown. Do I hear a thousand pounds?’
There was a silence. Fanshawe shrugged and nodded.
‘One thousand pounds I have. Any advance on a thousand?’
His eyes swept the room and at the far side from where Fanshawe sat he found a signal. No-one else saw it, for it did not exist, but as the blink of an eye can constitute a bid, no-one was surprised.
‘One thousand five hundred, against you, sir, on the left.’
Fanshawe nodded again.
‘Two thousand pounds. Any advance on . . . two thousand five hundred . . . and three thousand . . .’
Fanshawe bid against the fictional rival to clinch the purchase at £6,000. As a known gallery owner his credit was good, and he took the picture with him. Three days later, much faster than usual, Mr Trumpington Gore received a cheque for just over £5,000, the hammer price minus commission and VAT. He was delighted. At the end of the month Benny Evans came back to London, utterly relieved to be free of the bleak fastness of a freezing castle in Caithness in January. He never mentioned the grubby painting to Seb Mortlake and presumed from Mortlake’s silence that his chief had disagreed with him and that silence implied rebuke.
APRIL
Quite early in the month the sensation hit the art world. The window of the Fanshawe Gallery was dressed entirely in black velvet. Alone behind the glass, on a small easel, delicately but brightly lit by two spotlamps and guarded night and day by two big and muscled Group Four security guards, was a small painting. It had lost its chipped gilt frame.
The painting, tempera on poplar board, was much as the artist would have finished it. The colours glowed as fresh as when they were applied over 500 years before.
The Virgin Mary sat, gazing upwards, entranced, as the Archangel Gabriel brought her the Annunciation that she would soon bear in her womb the Son of God. Ten days earlier it had been authenticated without hesitation by Professor Guido Colenso, by far and away the world’s leading authority on the Siena School, and no-one would ever gainsay a judgement by Colenso.
The small notice below the painting simply said: SASSETTA 1400–1450. Stefano di Giovanni di Consolo, known as Sassetta, was one of the first of the giants of the early Italian Renaissance. He founded the Siena School, and influenced two generations of Sienese and Florentine Masters who came after him.
Though his surviving works are few in number and comprise mainly panels from much larger altarpieces, he is valued beyond diamonds. At a stroke the Fanshawe Gallery became a world player, attributed with discovering the first single-work Annunciation painted by the Master.
Ten days earlier Reggie Fanshawe had clinched a sale by private treaty for over £2,000,000. The divvy-up was done quietly in Zurich and the personal financial position of each man was transformed.
The art world was stunned by the discovery. So was Benny Evans. He went back through the catalogue of the 24 January sale but there was no trace. He asked what had happened and was told about the last-minute addition. The atmosphere inside the House of Darcy was poisonous and he intercepted a lot of accusing stares. Word gets around.
‘You should have brought it to me,’ hissed a humiliated Sebastian Mortlake. ‘What letter? There was no letter. Don’t give me that. I’ve seen your report and your valuation to the vice-chairman.’
‘Then you must have seen my reference to Professor Colenso.’
‘Colenso? Don’t mention Colenso to me. That shit Fanshawe hit upon the idea of Colenso. Look, laddie, you missed it. It
was evidently there. Fanshawe spotted it, but you missed it.’
Upstairs an emergency board meeting was taking place. The acidulous Duke of Gateshead was in the chair but Peregrine Slade was in the dock. Eight other directors sat around the table pointedly studying their fingertips. No-one was in the slightest doubt that not only had the mighty House of Darcy lost about a quarter of a million in commission, but it had had in its hands a real Sassetta and had let it go to a sharper pair of eyes for £6,000.
‘I run this ship, and the responsibility is mine,’ said Peregrine Slade quietly.
‘I think we all know that, Perry. Before we reach any conclusions, would you be kind enough to tell us exactly how this happened?’
Slade took a deep breath. He knew he was speaking for his professional life. A scapegoat would be needed. He did not intend that it should be he. But he also knew that to be shrill or to whinge would have the worst possible effect.
‘I am sure you all know that we offer the public a free valuation service. Always have. A tradition of the House of Darcy. Some agree with this, others not. Whatever one’s view the truth still is that it is immensely time-consuming.
‘Occasionally a real treasure is indeed brought in by a member of the public, identified, authenticated and sold for a large sum, with of course a substantial fee for us. But the vast majority of the stuff brought in off the street is junk.
‘The sheer burden of work, and especially in the heavy pre-Christmas period, means that what appears to be the worst of the junk has to be seen by junior valuers, lacking the experience of thirty or more years in the business. That is what happened here.