Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [121]
So one day when the doors to the museum opened, patrons discovered another painting hanging there: also a portrait, but this one of a man, Baldassarre Castiglione, by Raphael. Though Raphael, a few years younger than Leonardo, had learned from studying the older man’s work, this portrait is markedly different in spirit from La Joconde. The sitter is somber, even tired; he looks as if he has not smiled in a long time. Raphael’s masterpiece may have reflected the feeling of the curators that even though the space on the wall was now filled, there would be a hole in the museum’s soul forever.
i
But was the Mona Lisa truly gone for good? Occasionally, stories appeared about sightings of the famous painting. James Duveen, the nephew of Henry J. Duveen, one of London’s leading art dealers, later related that his uncle actually had a chance to buy the Mona Lisa. The elder Duveen was convinced that the offer was genuine, a hunch that later proved correct.
One morning, Henry J. Duveen was in the Bond Street showrooms… when he heard a man arguing with an assistant.
“I won’t go away,” the fellow was saying. “I’ve come to see the head of the firm, and see him I will.”
The man was creating something of a scene, so my uncle went over.
“What is the trouble?” he asked.
“I must see you alone and at once. It is a very important matter.”
Henry J. Duveen, not liking the look of the man, did not take him to his private office but to the far side of the large entrance gallery.
“Well?”
“Will you give me your word of honor that you will never reveal what I am going to tell you?”
My uncle began to think the seedy-looking foreigner was mad and tried to humor him.
“Of course; of course,” he murmured.
“If you don’t,” snarled the Italian, “I and my friends will know how to deal with you. You’d better be careful! Now listen; I have the Gioconda here in London. Will you buy it?”
My uncle stared at him open-mouthed. It was too incredible a thing to grasp all at once. That this anarchistic-looking fellow should —
“Well, what do you say? What’s the figure you’ll give me?”
Henry J. Duveen suddenly realized that the man was not mad. His brain worked like lightning. He took the only way out: he burst out laughing as though he thought the whole thing was a hoax, and walked away. As my uncle said to me afterwards: “I believed the fellow all right; he had nothing to gain by lying; but I would sooner have gone around with a stick of dynamite in my pocket for the rest of my life than have had any knowledge of that affair!” 1
ii
Another dealer proved not to be so cautious. Alfredo Geri, owner of the Galleria Borgognissanti in Florence, Italy, was an active dealer in art and antiques. He often placed advertisements in newspapers in several European cities, including Paris, offering to buy old works of art. But he could hardly have imagined what he would be offered in a letter he received in November 1913. The sender, who signed himself “Leonard,” claimed to have the Mona Lisa in his possession.
At first, Geri thought his correspondent was a crackpot or a hoaxer. But Leonard said he was an Italian who had been “suddenly seized with the desire to return to his country at least one of the many treasures which, especially in the Napoleonic era, had been stolen from Italy.” 2 He also mentioned that although he was not setting a specific price, he himself was not a wealthy man and would not refuse compensation if his native country were to reward him.
That struck a note in Geri’s heart. He glanced at the return address on the envelope: a post office box in Paris. Probably, Geri thought, the painting had long ago been spirited out of Paris, but just suppose… Though Geri was a businessman,