one mistake. He never used my services again, but as he didn't want people to know he had ever been misled, he never mentioned the matter, and though it became known that I no longer worked for him, the damage was contained. I even implied to other clients that our difference had sprung from my disapproval of some of his later purchases, which brought me the sympathy of the Warrens, who had feuded with Dunlop over a painting they felt he had unfairly grabbed from under their very eyes, and the Warrens became a far bigger presence in my life than Dunlop had ever been.
What had a profound effect on me was my realization, engendered by the Nattier crisis, that art collecting by the rich was often simply an amusing way of reinvesting and even substantially increasing their wealth, a diversion that also paid off in dividends of public recognition, highly gratifying to egos which had not been small to begin with. Being known as the owner of a Leonardo or a Raphael might entitle one to a patch of the painter's fame. And mightn't one steal a leg of their immortality by giving a specimen of their work to a public institution, or better yet, to a museum like the Frick or the Morgan or the Guggenheim named for oneself? At any rate, it seemed to me that I had some right to a private moral code of my own, where the only criterion was the beauty of the object in question and not of where or how or by whom or for whom it had been made.
It was in Paris, where I now established my principal residence, that I had my first contact with Hank and Leila Warren. They were originally from Troy, New York, but they had moved to Manhattan and had purchased a mansion on Fifth Avenue, primarily as the repository for a growing art collection and which would, after their deaths, be converted into a museum. They already, when we met, had the beginnings of a distinguished accumulation, and they had come to Paris en route to Spain, where they hoped to snag a first-rate El Greco. As I had already obtained a wonderful repenting and weeping Magdalene for a Baltimore collector, they wished me to accompany them on their Iberian expedition, which I was glad to do.
They struck me from the start as an oddly mismatched couple, yet their mutual tolerance and understanding was clearly evident. She was small and dark, with rich raven-black hair and a pale face of rather pinched features that might have once been briefly pretty. She rarely smiled, and one was slightly uncomfortably aware of the rather grim sobriety of her countenance and the acerbic intelligence betrayed by her carefully chosen remarks. Yet I soon had reason to feel the reassuring grasp of her strong willpower and the intense emotions that she kept chained up like a watchdog. If she was on your side, it was great. He, in contrast, was big, bland, cheerfully effervescent, expansively and expensively clad, redolent of big gold chains, rings and the finest cigars. His rumbling laugh could also be the crater of bursts of temper that made all but his wife quail. If she took the lead when it came to buying art, it was he who paid, and he was very much the American tycoon in his insistence on getting his money's worthâevery penny of it.
How had they met? Well, they hadn't. They had grown up together as first cousins. Their fathers had been brothers and partners in a prosperous western mining operation; each had been an only child, and their ultimate union had guaranteed the continuing solidity of the family business. Indeed, from what I could make out, they had taken for granted from childhood that they were destined to wed, a fate apparently entirely acceptable to each. Had they always been in love with each other? Had they ever been? Who knew? They never quarreled, and they were always together. They had one child, a daughter, long married and independent, with whom they seemed on good but not intimate terms. Someone told me that she was a dull but amiable ass, wed to a dull but faithful spouse; her
What had a profound effect on me was my realization, engendered by the Nattier crisis, that art collecting by the rich was often simply an amusing way of reinvesting and even substantially increasing their wealth, a diversion that also paid off in dividends of public recognition, highly gratifying to egos which had not been small to begin with. Being known as the owner of a Leonardo or a Raphael might entitle one to a patch of the painter's fame. And mightn't one steal a leg of their immortality by giving a specimen of their work to a public institution, or better yet, to a museum like the Frick or the Morgan or the Guggenheim named for oneself? At any rate, it seemed to me that I had some right to a private moral code of my own, where the only criterion was the beauty of the object in question and not of where or how or by whom or for whom it had been made.
It was in Paris, where I now established my principal residence, that I had my first contact with Hank and Leila Warren. They were originally from Troy, New York, but they had moved to Manhattan and had purchased a mansion on Fifth Avenue, primarily as the repository for a growing art collection and which would, after their deaths, be converted into a museum. They already, when we met, had the beginnings of a distinguished accumulation, and they had come to Paris en route to Spain, where they hoped to snag a first-rate El Greco. As I had already obtained a wonderful repenting and weeping Magdalene for a Baltimore collector, they wished me to accompany them on their Iberian expedition, which I was glad to do.
They struck me from the start as an oddly mismatched couple, yet their mutual tolerance and understanding was clearly evident. She was small and dark, with rich raven-black hair and a pale face of rather pinched features that might have once been briefly pretty. She rarely smiled, and one was slightly uncomfortably aware of the rather grim sobriety of her countenance and the acerbic intelligence betrayed by her carefully chosen remarks. Yet I soon had reason to feel the reassuring grasp of her strong willpower and the intense emotions that she kept chained up like a watchdog. If she was on your side, it was great. He, in contrast, was big, bland, cheerfully effervescent, expansively and expensively clad, redolent of big gold chains, rings and the finest cigars. His rumbling laugh could also be the crater of bursts of temper that made all but his wife quail. If she took the lead when it came to buying art, it was he who paid, and he was very much the American tycoon in his insistence on getting his money's worthâevery penny of it.
How had they met? Well, they hadn't. They had grown up together as first cousins. Their fathers had been brothers and partners in a prosperous western mining operation; each had been an only child, and their ultimate union had guaranteed the continuing solidity of the family business. Indeed, from what I could make out, they had taken for granted from childhood that they were destined to wed, a fate apparently entirely acceptable to each. Had they always been in love with each other? Had they ever been? Who knew? They never quarreled, and they were always together. They had one child, a daughter, long married and independent, with whom they seemed on good but not intimate terms. Someone told me that she was a dull but amiable ass, wed to a dull but faithful spouse; her
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