Portrait of a Man by Georges Perec, David Bellos Page A

Madera. He took a little Christ by Bernadino dei Conti out of his desk and asked me to produce any Renaissance work that I liked. I said yes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI don’t know. What else was I supposed to do?”
    â€œWhy did you decide to drop it?”
    â€œTo please Geneviève, I think. But it wasn’t a very firm decision …”
    â€œDid accepting Madera’s deal bother you?”
    â€œNo. It didn’t bother me. It didn’t cheer me up either. I think at the time I couldn’t care less. I think that in those days I didn’t give a damn about anything …”
    â€œBecause of Geneviève?”
    â€œProbably … I don’t know … Probably because of her … or because of me …”
    â€œWhy because of you?”
    â€œNo reason … because I took things seriously … because of the ease with which I broke a commitment, a promise which, when I’d made it, on the plane, had seemed binding …”
    â€œYou had no respect for yourself?”
    â€œBut I did! To have lost self-respect I would have had to make a judgement about myself to begin with, and I don’t think I intended or was able to do that. No, it was simpler than that, I just didn’t give a damn. I stayed at home, I looked at the dei Conti, I thought vaguelyabout what work I would invent to stand in its stead, and that was all. I spent a week or so in that state. Now and again I leafed through Benezit’s
Dictionary of Artists
searching for a painter who would fit, I made a shortlist of half a dozen, fairly obscure and uninteresting ones like d’Oggiono, Bembo, Morocini. That was when Madera phoned me and asked me first to come and work at Dampierre, and then to cook up something that could fetch a hundred and fifty million. I agreed and promised to come up with an answer a few days later …”
    â€œDidn’t working at Dampierre bother you?”
    â€œNo. Not especially …”
    â€œWhy did he insist on it?”
    â€œI don’t know … I suspect he was wary of Rufus because this was a bigger deal. That must have been why he had himself introduced instead of staying in the background as he usually did.”
    â€œHad he told you at that first meeting that it would be a bigger deal than the others?”
    â€œNo, he didn’t specify anything at all. He was supposed to know about the rest of the business …”
    â€œWhen he asked you for a canvas worth one hundred and fifty million, did he hint at any particular artist?”
    â€œNo. It was my choice to do an Antonello da Messina.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œNo particular reason to start with. It was just about the only thing that could fetch the required price for that period – between 1450 and 1500 – without running the risk of making a mistake withthe wood for the panel or the traces of
gesso duro
that can’t be erased or with the pigments – taking into account that it had to be a painter with a high contemporary profile whose actual life was mysterious in a number of ways and whose work was easily identifiable, and so on, and finally, with a style that was accessible. It was a better choice than da Vinci, Ghirlandaio, Bellini or Veneziano. There was another advantage: there are no Antonellos in Paris, except the
Portrait of a Man known as
Le Condottiere, but there are other Antonellos all over Europe. I called Madera, who accepted an Antonello, and I asked him to fund a European tour. He said yes and I cleared off for two months.”
    â€œYou wanted to clear off?”
    â€œIt made a good start. On two or three occasions I felt like sending them a telegram saying I wasn’t coming back. But I didn’t do it. I studied all the Antonellos diligently and then settled down in Dampierre. For a year and a half …”
    â€œWhy did you agree to all that so easily?”
    â€œAll what?”
    â€œAnother deal, when