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arrived, and they were all settled with their drinks, the professor told the writer that Norseland wanted a prospectus on the cultural activities it was sponsoring, which included theater events, an arts center, and an exchange program between Gloucestershire College of Arts and Technology and an art school in Leningrad. Redfern listened as Drewe told him about Norseland’s £20,000 donation to the Tate archives and its intention to raise a further £500,000. Drewe wanted the prospectus sent to the auction houses so that they could see the full extent of the company’s commitment to the arts. Norseland was about to place three works on the block to help fund its programs, and Drewe was hoping that the auction houses would lower their standard commission.

Would Redfern be interested in representing Norseland? In exchange for writing the prospectus and setting up appointments with the auctioneers, he would receive a commission on whatever sold.

Redfern agreed and went to work. He made contact with Christie’s and Sotheby’s and invited their representatives to see the three works at Norseland’s office in the upscale neighborhood around Bedford Square, where Drewe had rented a small, well-appointed space with a nice view, hired a secretary, supplied vases of fresh flowers, and hung half a dozen paintings on the walls.

Redfern walked the auctioneers through the office and gave them copies of transparencies and some of the provenance documents Drewe had assembled.

A few weeks later the Sotheby’s catalog for Part 2 of its December 1991 auction included two Nicholson still lifes, dated 1946 and 1955, and a Le Corbusier entitled Femme Nue. All three were being offered “on behalf of the Lichfield Mystery Plays.” All three sold.

Meanwhile, Danny Berger was also doing very well for himself. He had made several sales abroad through a runner and art consultant named Stuart Berkeley, who had clients in Canada, New York, and Japan. When Berger gave the ponytailed runner a photograph of a Giacometti titled Portrait of a Woman, depicting the upper torso and face of the artist’s wife, Annette, Berkeley quickly reported a nibble from a private New York dealer named Sheila Maskell.

Maskell had shown a photograph of the Giacometti to Dominic Taglialatella, a dealer with Avanti Galleries on Madison Avenue. She told him the painting was owned by a John Catch, who was selling it through a group of “very substantial” Londoners. The price was $325,000. Taglialatella had a very good client in Sweden who would probably be interested, and a few days later he and Maskell were on a plane to London to see the work.

On Drewe’s instructions, Berger had rented a small warehouse opposite the Golders Green tube station, a slightly more impressive showcase than Berger’s garage. Here Drewe had hung Portrait of a Woman, along with a handful of other works that looked as if they had been undisturbed for years. Now, as Maskell, Berkeley, and Berger looked on, Taglialatella eyed the portrait and blew some dust off the canvas. They all stood to gain thousands of pounds in commissions, and when Taglialatella agreed to the price, everyone shook hands.

As Taglialatella flew to Sweden to deliver the painting to his client, the wire transfer went into Maskell’s account without a hitch, and the following day Berkeley and Berger got their cut. Each was unaware they had just handled a fake, and the lion’s share of the money went to Drewe via Norseland.

The scam had taken on a life of its own.

11

AFTER GIACOMETTI

On a narrow cobblestone alley in the Latin Quarter of Paris, in one of three sixteenth-century courtyards known collectively as the Cour de Rohan, Mary Lisa Palmer managed the affairs of the Giacometti Association from an office on the top floor of an old three-story building. To the American eye the secluded Cour was so quintessentially Parisian that it was used as a backdrop for Vincente Minnelli’s Hollywood musical Gigi. In the twenties, the photographer Eugène Atget snapped a series of iconic pictures of the courtyard with an enormous wooden