Andrea took another sip of wine and smiled. “Well, you’re right, there is something I wanted to tell you. In person.” She waved to the waiter and ordered something from the chef’s recommendations menu.
Helena told the waiter she hadn’t decided yet. “I am here. In person,” she said to Andrea. “So, what brings you to Budapest?”
“I had an interesting discussion with the Carabinieri’s Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. I think you would know them as the Monuments Men. And before you ask, no, they are not all men, but they all liked that American movie with George Clooney. Who didn’t? And the name stuck. They have been exceptionally busy these past few weeks, as you may have heard, with the discovery and seizure of about a hundred thousand archaeological bits and pieces, some of which are extremely valuable. But the part that interested me was that they believe they have found some trace of a lost Caravaggio. This one is described as the widow Judith with the head of Assyrian general Holofernes.” Andrea’s smile widened and she had a big gulp of her wine, followed by a long hard look at her friend.
“His Judith and Holofernes is in the Palazzo Barberini,” Helena said. “No one has yet authenticated the second one, the one that was found under a mattress in Toulouse. I studied the two paintings side by side at the Brera and, though I was impressed by the technique, the colours, the facial expressions — all of which seemed to be consistent with Caravaggio’s style — I remain skeptical. There was something about Holofernes’s pointy little teeth that seemed to me, at least, doubtful. Do you honestly think that yet one more attic has yielded a third Caravaggio Judith?”
“I am with Gian Pappi on the Toulouse painting,” Andrea said. “I think it’s by Finson, a talented artist and a great admirer of Caravaggio’s, but not quite in his league. And you’re right about those feral teeth. Never seen those in any other paintings by our bad boy of the Italian baroque.”
“The Louvre turned it down,” Helena said.
Andrea finished the last bit of goose liver pâté and delicately licked her forefinger. “Still, it was snapped up for $170 million by someone who didn’t need convincing. Time for you to order?”
“What kind of trace did your guys find of this missing Caravaggio?” Helena was skeptical. Undiscovered Caravaggios were rare, and his life, since he had been notorious in his own era, had been amply documented. He had fought duels; he had been banished from Rome for killing another man — a pimp, but still. He sought refuge in Naples, then in Malta, where he had been befriended by the Grand Master but fled after some altercation with the knights. He had a volcanic temper and turned nasty at the least provocation.
Helena ordered the veal medallions on Andrea’s recommendation, and they chatted fondly about the catastrophe of Caravaggio’s life. “There are those records of at least five canvases after he fled Malta,” Andrea continued. “He was broke and desperate, even before his face was slashed by someone who had a major grudge. He had offended a lot of people. There’s that persistent rumour that he was ambushed by some Knights of Malta seeking revenge for whatever he had done while he was on their island. He was hoping to be granted a pardon by Rome, and he needed new paintings to offer as gifts for the authorities, to buy his way back into the city’s good graces. But he never made it, as you know, and the paintings, if there were any paintings, disappeared.”
Helena tried not to seem impatient. Andrea was, obviously, building up to her story’s climax.
“Okay, so those last paintings that we know, they are darker and even more violent than his earlier work. They also revisit his previous subjects. Take The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula. It is particularly grim, even for Caravaggio. The dark background is blacker than in the rest of his work, and the theatrical lighting ghostly: it does not illuminate, only makes the dark seem even darker. Your Judith and Holofernes is darker than Artemisia’s usual work.”
“It depends on when she painted it. Her early work is more violent than Caravaggio’s. She had a lot to be angry about. Is there any written record, anywhere, of his having gone back to the subject of Judith?”
“Well now,” Andrea whispered, leaning forward in her chair. “That’s why I wanted to see you. Our Monuments Men found a credible source, something we’ve not seen before, a letter by a Spanish diplomat who was sailing back to Spain in 1750. This man had come to Naples to find great art, and he went home with a painting of Judith beheading Holofernes. The painting referred to in the Spaniard’s letter seems to be the same one that shows up in a reference in Bratislava early in the eighteenth century, acquired by the nobleman who had bought the Rembrandts now in the collection of Warsaw’s restored Royal Castle.”
“Lubomirski?” Helena asked.
“No. Another collector. This man decamped for France with his art, including the Caravaggio.”
“But the painting Waclaw is after is by Artemisia.”
“That’s what I find so interesting. The Lubomirskis did own a Gentileschi, and it, too, was of Judith killing Holofernes.”
“Okay.”
“But if you look at the letters, there is a record of a Caravaggio bought by a nobleman visiting the court in Madrid. According to a diary entry by a courtier, it was one of Caravaggio’s last paintings. It’s always been reasonable to assume that if he was killed by the Knights, they would have taken his paintings and anything else of
