Stealing the Mystic Lamb (22 page)

At the time it was not irregular for junk merchants to travel through the city, selling a wide variety of wares from a horse-drawn cart. From a sort of portable flea market on wheels, they would sell objects both new and used, from kitchenware to clothing, from blankets to carpets, from farm equipment to horseshoes. Nothing would look suspicious on the back of a junk cart as it wheeled its way through town.

The canon commandeered a junk cart, already loaded with bric-a-brac. On 31 August 1914, his friends drove it through town by night, its contents clattering along the cobbled streets. They backed the cart into the
courtyard of the bishop’s residence and closed the gate. In the dark of night they carefully, as quietly as possible, unloaded the junk from the cart: pans and pots, carpets and lamp sconces, brooms and scythes, books and bridles. They slid the four wooden cases onto the bottom of the empty cart, then began to reload it. First they spread out carpets; then they carefully piled on the rest of the junk so that the appearance was haphazard.

Their camouflage complete, they opened the courtyard gate and drove the loaded cart through town. Had anyone observed them, they would simply have thought that the bishop’s housekeepers had made an evening purchase from the local junkman. The horse clopped along cobbles past the rail station, making two stops at private homes nearby. At each stop, two of the cases were carefully pulled out from under the junk heap and hidden inside the houses, secreted between walls and beneath floorboards.

The Lamb
was safe, for the time being. It would not be safe for long.

The canon and bishop expected to be questioned as to the whereabouts of
The Lamb
. Their plan to claim that it had been shipped abroad would require proof, if it were to be believed. The cabinet minister provided the necessary documentation. He mailed a letter to Canon van den Gheyn on stationery of the Belgian Ministry of Science and Fine Arts, signed by the minister. It contained no text, and the canon could add what he felt was necessary to the situation. The canon typed a letter to the effect that the clergy of Saint Bavo had been ordered to deliver Jan van Eyck’s
Adoration of the Mystic Lamb
to the minister’s deputy, who would then ship the painting to England for safekeeping during the war.

This seemed plausible, as other Belgian treasures had already been sent to England. Many significant artworks elsewhere in Europe were moved from their traditional locations to places considered further from the line of fire. Austrian air raids prompted the removal in 1918 to Rome of many of northern Italy’s greatest works. The equestrian statues of
Bartolomeo Colleoni
by Verrocchio in Venice and Donatello’s
Gattamelata
in Padua made the trip south, as did the Quadriga, the four bronze horses that
decorated the balcony of Basilica San Marco in Venice. Their history of displacement by war plunder rivals that of
The Ghent Altarpiece
. So the Canon’s story was plausible. He backdated the letter. A sanctioned forgery was complete.

When the German army arrived in Ghent, polite inquiries began immediately regarding the location of
The Lamb
. Initial interviews with Canon van den Gheyn were couched in terms of concern for the welfare of the altarpiece. The devastation at Louvain was, perhaps impoliticly, cited as a rationale for Germany to be informed of the relocation of
The Lamb
. The Germans claimed to want to ensure its safety—if they didn’t know its location, the altarpiece might be bombed inadvertently.

The canon produced the forged ministry letter on the first occasion that he was interviewed. When they read it, his inquisitors laughed aloud. Of all the stupid plans to safeguard artwork, what could be worse than sending it to the English, who would certainly never give it back? The Germans had a point. England, through a variety of methods ranging from legitimate to underhanded, had gathered and retained a significant quantity of art not their own. The 1816 purchase of the Parthenon Marbles by Lord Elgin from the hostile Turks occupying Athens was still a fresh memory. When Greece regained sovereignty of its capital city and first politely, and then not so politely, requested the return of their national treasures, England refused. The sculptures had been purchased legitimately, albeit from the government of a conquering foreign power. The Parthenon Marbles remain in the British Museum to this day and will almost certainly never be returned.

Once the laughter subsided, the German interviewers remained unsatisfied. They first asked, and then demanded, to know the name of the ministerial deputy who took
The Lamb
and how it had been transported. And hadn’t the deputy provided a written receipt? Canon van den Gheyn consistently replied that he wasn’t permitted to say.

The canon, the bishop, the burgomaster, and the cathedral staff were questioned on multiple occasions. The staff knew only what the canon had told them—that
The Lamb
had been moved to England. The burgomaster
knew nothing beyond that initial, preemptory conversation with the bishop and canon, which had ended with the conclusion that nothing should be done. The bishop had intentionally remained uninformed of particulars, so he did not need to lie. The canon remained silent.

In January 1915 orders came from Berlin, demanding a certificate from the bishop stating that the Germans had not stolen
The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb
. Word had reached the outside world that the altarpiece was no longer in Ghent. The assumption was that the Germans had taken it, to reunite it with its long-lost wings in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. An Italian magazine had published a report to that effect in December 1914. Europe was indignant. Germany had no wish to be accused of art confiscation—especially when, in this case, it happened to be innocent.

Not for lack of trying, however. Based on the enthusiasm with which they interviewed the canon and cathedral staff, the Germans certainly would have taken
The Lamb
had it been waiting in Saint Bavo Cathedral when they arrived. Yet the Adam and Eve panels were never seized from Brussels. Perhaps if the main central portion of
The Ghent Altarpiece
could not be found, the Germans would not waste time and negative publicity in taking its lateral portions.

This set the stage for the publication of an article that scandalized international scholars. In early 1915, in the journal
Die Kunst
, art historian Emil Schäffer posed the question: “Shall we take pictures from Belgium for display in German galleries?” The article suggested that the time was ripe to reassemble the disparate portions of
The Ghent Altarpiece
. Not mincing words, Schäffer wrote, “The best pictures captured as booty in Belgium should be handed over to German galleries.” The wing panels were already in Berlin. Belgium was occupied. Why not remove the remaining sections from Brussels and Ghent and unite the masterpiece once again, in Berlin?

Scholars from all sides responded, condemning the article and the very idea of robbing a conquered country of its national treasure. The Napoleonic plunder was most frequently cited as a horror never to be repeated. German published responses expressed universal outrage at the
idea. Imperious, bespectacled, and brilliant Wilhelm von Bode, his sloped moustache a mirror to his jawline, was, at the time, the best-known figure in the international art world and the figurehead for German artistic theory and policy. He published his response: “My conviction is that all civilized countries should have their own artistic creations, and all their lawful artistic possessions, left them intact; and that the same principles of protection should be exercised in enemy territory as at home.” But it was not clear that actual operations matched the publicly articulated virtuous sentiment. In Ghent, in the heat of war, the interest shown by Germans in the location of
The Lamb
suggested that its seizure was a strong probability.

The Italians made further accusations, particularly against Bode, who was director-general of the royal museums of Prussia from 1905 to 1920, including the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. Bode felt compelled to denounce the attacks; his response was published in a Turin newspaper: “The assertion that I have drawn up a list of works of art as plunder is ridiculous to the point of being farcical.” Were these accusations simply paranoid fear that millennia-old habits of plunder would inevitably repeat themselves despite the current climate of change? Or was the scholarly discourse a veil of wishful thinking?

In the summer of 1915 the German commissioner of art in Belgium, Dr. Otto von Falke, made a public declaration in the name of the German imperial government that not a single work of art had been removed from Belgium, nor would it be. German military orders for the protection of art and historic monuments were strict and clear.

Yet art had already been taken from Malines. Was Falke lying, or had circuits been crossed?

In the wake of these accusations and defenses, Canon van den Gheyn had a brief respite from interviews about
The Lamb
. The period of quiet ended with the arrival in Ghent of two German art historians. They played up the good-cop angle, pleading for the safety of the altarpiece. If the German army did not know its location, they might accidentally destroy it. The art historians would not say, but they seemed certain that
The Lamb
was still in or around Ghent. Had someone informed? Who could have?

The art historians were replaced by a less friendly German officer. He was blunt. The Germans had heard about the junk cart smuggling. Had someone seen them? Or could one of the canon’s friends have talked? That couldn’t be, or the Germans would have the panels already. What had happened?

The officer showed his cards, admitting that three theories existed about the fate of
The Lamb
: (1) It was hidden in Ghent. (2) It had been sent to England. (3) It was stashed on board a ship at Le Havre, where the Belgian government had retreated to safety. The canon shrugged his shoulders. Only the Belgian minister of culture knew the exact location of the altarpiece. Why didn’t the officer ask him? Of course the canon knew that the minister was safely in Le Havre, out of the interrogators’ reach. Canon van den Gheyn must have smiled to himself. What the officer did not know was that
The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb
was hidden only a few hundred meters from where they sat.

The Germans were losing patience. On 18 October 1915 the bishop of Ghent received a forceful letter from the German inspector general of cavalry. Threatening severe repercussions, he demanded to know the hiding place of
The Lamb
. The bishop replied in all honesty. He had no idea.

Then another period of quiet. The war stole attention away from the location of the hidden
Lamb
, and Canon van den Gheyn began to think that the trouble had blown over. A year and a half passed without incident.

In May 1917 came a knock at the door to the bishop’s residence. Two German civilians requested permission to photograph several important paintings in the cathedral collection, including the altarpiece. They acted as if they had no idea that the altarpiece was not simply sitting in the cathedral, a few meters away—as though they were unaware of all the inquiries by German officials as to its whereabouts. The bishop referred them to the canon or the Belgian ministry. It became clear that it had been some sort of test, to see if passed time had softened resolve. Their
bluff called, the German civilians revealed that they knew that
The Lamb
was hidden nearby.

Ten days later they returned with an armed escort and searched the Episcopal Palace. They tapped walls to look for hollows. They checked for loose floorboards. They found nothing.
The Lamb
had been moved nearly three years earlier. Why search the palace, when other German officers had stated that they knew the altarpiece had been moved by junk cart? The searchers seemed disorganized.

But a new danger rose. The Germans began to commandeer private residences for use as barracks. This process escalated. More and more homes were being taken over in a path that was encroaching on the first of the two homes in which
The Lamb
was hidden. If one of the houses should be occupied by German troops, they would almost certainly find the panels secreted inside.

On 4 February 1918 the canon and the same four citizens moved the panels to a new location north of the city center: the Augustinian church of Saint Stephen. Whether they tried their luck with the junk cart or came up with a new transport strategy remains unknown. As a church, Saint Stephen’s was unlikely to be appropriated, and an ideal hiding place was selected inside it. A confessional was pulled away from the wall inside the church, the panels were slid vertically into place behind it, and the confessional was replaced.

This was the last move they would make. There would be no more inquiries. The war was nearing its end, the outcome in little doubt. The Germans lost the luxury of searching for buried treasure.

But with their impending defeat went any ethical pretence about the protection of art and historic buildings. Weeks before the Armistice, the Germans announced publicly that they would blow up the entire city of Ghent as they withdrew.

Now Canon van den Gheyn was torn. Should he finally reveal the location of
The Lamb
? Better it fall to retreating German hands than be destroyed forever. Or should he risk his life by attempting to move it out
of Ghent altogether, when the war’s end was so near? After many sleepless nights, he could not decide.

Then history made a decision for him. The Germans withdrew, leaving the city intact.
The Lamb
was safe. On 11 November 1918 the war ended.

Thanks to the bravery and guile of Canon van den Gheyn, Belgium’s national treasure remained in its birthplace throughout a long and terrible war, through countless interrogations, through near-misses, through midnight maneuvers, through secret caches. Nine days after the Armistice, the panels were brought out of hiding and displayed once again in Saint Bavo Cathedral.