Page 20 of Burning Caine
“Nothing.” I rolled my shoulders and opened the door.
As we entered, a small bell rang, and a woman came to meet us.
“Samantha Caine and Lucy Chapman with Foster Mutual Insurance,” I said brightly. “I’m here to get a statement on the damaged painting and take it in for repairs.”
“Good afternoon. I’m the curator, Paulette Johnson.” She smiled politely but gave me the weakest handshake I’d felt since the celery on Saturday, then greeted Lucy.
“We focus on local work.” She led us through the first room, pointing out a few highlights. “Some of our pieces are here for sale directly from the artist. If you see anything you like, let me know.”
Most of the artwork was small, no more than two feet high or wide. We admired each piece she focused on briefly but didn’t linger, as we still had to get over to Ferraro’s to drop the painting off.
Around a corner, a second room housed their realism collection. I gravitated toward a painting eerily similar to Monet’sImpression, Sunrise. The colors and style were Monet’s, even the brush strokes, but it wasn’t a duplicate.
“It’s by an artist from here in Brenton. He’s quite talented; spent some time working at the Louvre last year!”
I stood closer to it, inspecting the detail, scanning for a signature. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s a Monet pastiche, isn’t it?”
“A Monet what?” asked Lucy.
“Pastiche.” Monet had signed his in the bottom left, but there wasn’t one on this painting anywhere. Roughly nineteen by twenty-five inches, same size as the original.
“I still don’t understand.”
I expected the curator to explain, but when she didn’t, I continued. “A work of art imitating another style or another artist. This isn’t a copy of a Monet, at least not one I’m familiar with but it’s in his style, right down to the application of the paint.”
“Interesting. Is that common?”
“Very.” I stood back to take the whole thing in. “You’re right, Paulette. This is good.”
We made our way through a door in the back, painted to match the walls, so it didn’t intrude on the flow of the gallery. The office was small and cramped, dominated by a large table at the back, while a small computer desk was nestled against the wall. She took me directly to the table where the damaged painting lay.
“It’s calledNumber Vee.” She flicked on a spotlight to improve the view.
“Vee?”
“Instead of Number Five, Roman numerals. I thought it was clever.”
I nodded absently. It was a stretched and unframed canvas, three feet high and two wide, painted in three strips of blue, dark, medium, and light. The curator indicated the tear near the bottom, and I took a small flashlight out of my bag to take a closer look, confirming my initial impression from the photos. The tear was precisely on the grain of the canvas, and the paint was exclusively blue.
“Can you turn it over?” I asked.
Once it was face down, I pointed to the top of the tear. “See this, Lucy?”
She got in closer. “See what?”
“Ninety degree turn at the top of the tear. We couldn’t see it from the front because the paint’s holding it together.”
“Oh, gotcha.” She popped a bubble as she straightened. “You’ve got a good eye!”
I clenched my jaw and glared at her. She slowed her chewing, then swallowed hard.
“No, I just know what I’m looking for.” I took out my phone and a measuring tape, explaining to her as I worked. “We’ll take a few additional photos for the claim file, showing the measuring tape and the damage. Four inches long and one-eighth inch off to the side at the end.”
Lucy remained quiet through the process. Once I was done, we applied a low-adhesive tape to the back to ensure the tear didn’t expand.
The curator had witnessed the original damage—a careless visitor impaled it with a selfie stick—so she was able to answer some basic questions, sign the statement of loss, and fill out the release to allow us to take the painting.
Paulette packed the painting into a transport case. “I know Foster usually deals with Ferraro’s, but I’d like to recommend a different restoration company.”