The Rembrandt Secret (25 page)

‘Dear God, if your father could hear you now,’ Samuel said, flicking crumbs off the tartan rug which covered his knees. ‘He had to die to get you interested in art.’

Marshall smiled wryly. ‘Yes, ironic, isn’t it? But I have to know what I’m talking about. Look, I’ve inherited these bloody letters and the responsibility. People are dying because of them, so shouldn’t I know what I’m doing?’

‘Your father studied for a lifetime, and it didn’t save
him
.’ Reaching for the bell, Samuel rang it vigorously and Mrs McKendrick came in a few moments later. ‘Could we have some tea, please, Mrs McKendrick?’

‘Cake?’ she asked simply, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

Samuel nodded. ‘Oh yes, and cake.’

Smiling, Mrs McKendrick left the room and Marshall turned back to the old man.

‘Just tell me what I need to know, Samuel.’

Wheeling himself over to the fire, Samuel poked the flames into life, then looked over his shoulder towards his visitor.

‘Why are you suddenly trusting me?’

‘Because you told me about the letters,’ Marshall said frankly. ‘I knew then you weren’t lying.’

The door opened, and both men watched in silence as Mrs McKendrick laid down a tray on the table in front of the fire. When she had left the room again, Marshall poured the tea and passed a cup to Samuel, saying, ‘This is very civilised.’

‘When life is in chaos, the civilised things matter,’ Samuel replied enigmatically. ‘This is very serious, Marshall.’

‘I know.’

‘And I understand why you don’t want to go to the police, but you should think about it. Something could happen to you—’

‘No, Samuel, I’m not going to the police. Don’t ask me again. This is something I have to do myself. For myself and my father … I thought he’d sent me the letters, but it wasn’t him after all. It was Nicolai Kapinski.
He
sent them to me,’ Marshall paused for an instant. ‘Funnily enough, that’s made me more determined, not less. I was chosen to sort all this mess out.’

‘But you don’t have to get killed to prove it.’

‘I don’t intend to get killed,’ Marshall retorted. ‘But the more I hear about my father, the more I realise he wasn’t a happy man. He didn’t really trust anyone around him, and that’s a sad way to live, Samuel. I should have been closer to him.’

‘You had your own life.’

‘Yes, and I was so determined to prove the point. I didn’t
want to know about the art world, I wasn’t interested, and I made it very clear I wanted to follow my own career, but I realise now how much that must have hurt him.’ Marshall paused, regretful. ‘My father couldn’t share his interests with me, because I didn’t want to know. The only thing I remember about his books is dropping one when I was a kid and getting shouted at because I broke the spine. Oh, I know my father had friends, people around him, but the more I hear the more I realise his life was not ideal. I told you about his girlfriend?’

Samuel nodded.

‘Well, Nicolai Kapinski told me she was blackmailing him.’

‘What!’

‘And Teddy Jack, the man who was apparently my father’s closest confidante, believes the letters were in Charlotte Gorday’s possession and now her killer’s got them.’

‘So he doesn’t know you have?’

‘No, and Nicolai Kapinski hasn’t told him either,’ Marshall replied. ‘I was watching them both this morning, wondering who was lying and who was telling the truth. It’s like they were still competing for my father’s attention, even after his death. When he was alive, it seems that he was always pitting one against the other.’

‘Divide and rule,’ Samuel said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I will. Your father had many good qualities and a brilliant mind, but he had one major flaw – a total inability to trust anyone. I’d known him for years,
shared all my research with him, my private thoughts and feelings, but he still didn’t trust me.’ Samuel thought about the Rembrandt letters, and the fact that Owen had kept one back. ‘I believe that if your father had trusted someone he wouldn’t be dead now. Don’t you make the same mistake.’

‘My problem isn’t so much trusting, as knowing
who
to trust,’ Marshall replied, holding the older man’s gaze. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you before, Samuel, I should have known you’d never do anything to hurt my father. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

‘
I
don’t want anything to happen to me,’ Samuel joked, but his expression was serious.

‘I really do need your help, Samuel,’ Marshall repeated. ‘You’re the only person who can tell me what I need to know.’

‘All right,’ Samuel agreed, finishing his tea and setting down the cup. ‘I haven’t lectured for a long time, Marshall; you’ll have to bear with me until I get in my stride again. Now, let me see. You want to know about Rembrandt?’

‘Yes. I want you fill in the gaps.’

‘Then you’ll need some background … Like other artists of his time, Rembrandt took in students. He was very successful when he was young, so he had a studio early in his career. And pupils.’

‘He taught them how to paint?’

Samuel blew out his cheeks. ‘Well, it wasn’t quite that simple, they were first taught the basics then trained up. An important artist would take in students to live on the
premises, if there was room. And there was, because Rembrandt’s house was plenty big enough.’

He scooted over to the round table and came back with two volumes, slapping one down on the low table in front of the fire, and opening the other at an illustration of Rembrandt’s studio. ‘This is a good example –
Interior of an Artist’s Studio, possibly Rembrandt –
drawn by the artist himself. You see him looking over the work his pupil has done? See the apprentice at the easel and the others in the background, and all the paraphernalia that Rembrandt collected for his paintings – spears, costumes, caskets, helmets? And look at the sitter, a woman in traditional Dutch costume of the period—’

‘Who could be Geertje Dircx. She wrote that she sat for Rembrandt’s pupils,’ Marshall said, staring at the drawing avidly. ‘Could be her.’

Samuel nodded.

‘Could be, or could be a number of other women. The artists paid some models to sit to them, others they found almost destitute and fed them instead. It was pretty low work – or that’s how it was perceived anyway. Prostitutes often sat for painters, or relatives of the artists were sometimes used as models.’

‘Did Rembrandt have any female relatives?’

‘His wife was dead, his sister didn’t live in Amsterdam, and at that time he didn’t have a daughter. So no, if Rembrandt wanted to use someone close to hand, he might have had to use his housekeeper. After all, he wouldn’t have had to pay her.’

‘And he taught the pupils to draw first?’

Samuel nodded. ‘To draw, and to mix paints, prepare the ground of an oil painting. The under-painting of Rembrandt’s pictures was usually grey, or warm brown, or a yellow.’

‘So why were they so dark?’

‘If he had painted them on a dark background the colours would have faded back. Painting them over a lighter background meant that the lightness of the base came through. Especially if he was using glazes—’

‘What?’

‘A transparent colour mixed with oil. Linseed oil, or Venetian turpentine sometimes. There could be up to ten glazes laid one over the other transparently, each one with more oil than the preceding one.’

‘Why?’

‘Fat over lean,’ Samuel replied. ‘With every layer, you use more oil, or the painting will dry out and crack.’

‘OK, then what?’

‘The layers of glazes would glow against the lighter base, acting as a refractive index, so that the colours seemed to radiate. That’s what took the time, waiting for each layer to dry before applying another. It took months, not weeks. When the ground was grey, Rembrandt taught his pupils how to intensify the shadows with warm colours, so that the greyness underneath gave cool half tones. If he used a yellow ground, half tones were added over. But he also used scumbling and glazing too, as I said.’

‘But Rembrandt laid the paint on thickly sometimes,’

Marshall said. ‘I remember the picture my father sold, there were chunks of cream highlights.’

‘And that’s what gave a three-dimensional effect. The contrast made the painting seem more real. But there were no ready-made paints in those days; every colour had to be ground up with a pestle and mortar for a long time, until it was smooth. No shortcuts. And then it would have to be mixed with more oil. Think about it – the smell of the ground paints, the linseed and the turpentine would have been overwhelming. In the summer, they left the windows open, but there wasn’t much air because there was no proper ventilation. In winter it was cold, and the house would reek of the materials they were making – and using – every day.’ Samuel paused, thinking back to his old lectures. ‘Rembrandt didn’t go in for training his students to draw much. But we know he used to get them to copy his preparatory paintings in order to learn.
Proeven van zyn Konst
.’

‘What?’

‘It means “put his skills to the test”.’

‘Then what?’

‘Well, sometimes Rembrandt would do a painting of a theme he liked, say for example, the Head of Christ – and the pupils would create their own versions.’

‘So there would be numerous versions?’

Samuel nodded. ‘Varying in quality, of course.’

‘How long would it take a student to learn all this?’

‘Depends on the student. A good pupil might learn fast. Another might take three years. Three years was the usual
time for an apprenticeship. Remember, some of Rembrandt’s pupils had already been partly trained by other artists before they came to him. Ferdinand Bol, for instance. There’s some evidence that he had been tutored by Jacob Gerritsz, Culp or Abraham Bloemaert.’ Flicking over the pages quickly, Samuel passed Marshall a book, open at a page showing a
Portrait of Elisabeth Jacobs dr. Bas.
’

‘But this is by Rembrandt, surely.’

‘No, that’s by Ferdinand Bol,’ Samuel said, smiling knowingly. ‘See how closely he mimicked Rembrandt. When Bredius – some say the most important art historian of the last century – declared this work to be by Ferdinand Bol and
not
by Rembrandt there was an outcry. It was owned by the Rijksmuseum and was one of their prize exhibits; they didn’t take kindly to it being demoted.’

‘Because it lost value?’

‘A lot of value – and because they were trying to build up a collection of Rembrandts at the time.’

Marshall thought for a moment. ‘Tobar Manners said that my father’s Rembrandt was actually by Ferdinand Bol.’

‘Many works have been attributed to Bol that were previously called Rembrandts,’ Samuel replied, ‘but that painting of your father’s was genuine, and Manners knew it. He knew its worth from the first time he saw it – and he wanted it.’

‘So why didn’t
he
buy it?’

‘That’s where the luck comes in. It was a
sleeper
. A valuable painting no one else had spotted. Your father found
it at an auction in The Hague, bought it, and it made his name. At the time Manners was also building his career and had made a few lucky buys. He spotted a Gerrit Dou in France and bought a Pieter de Hoogh from an American dealer. Both big names, but not
the
big name. He’d never owned a Rembrandt. Brokered them, yes. Dealt in them, but never owned one. That stuck in his craw.’ Samuel laced his hands together. ‘Manners has a very sound reputation in Dutch art, but what he wants most is a Rembrandt. He needs it now, needs a good sale to prop up his business—’

‘
Manners
is struggling?’

Samuel shrugged.

‘Everyone is struggling now. There isn’t a dealer in New York or London who would want to see their stock lose value. But as for Manners, if he could handle a big Rembrandt sale, it would propel him back into the limelight. I told you, Rembrandts keep their value, increase it every day – that’s why the letters would be lethal.’

‘OK. Tell me more about Rembrandt.’

‘He was a greedy man. Ambitious, quick to make money, a voracious collector. He was successful from the off, and that meant that he never had to struggle for recognition. He was the painter people wanted to commission; the favourite of the authorities and of the merchant classes. Remember, the merchants had suddenly been promoted in Holland. They were the ones with the money now, and they wanted to show it off. You remember the tulip trading?’

Marshall nodded. ‘A fortune was paid for the bulbs.’

‘Well, that was one way they showed their wealth. Other ways consisted of collecting silver ware, newly imported fabrics and furniture, but most of all, if you were anybody in seventeenth-century Holland, you had your portrait painted. And you had it painted by the best, the most expensive, the most sought after. That was Rembrandt van Rijn. He knew he could ask big prices because he would get them, and he became avaricious. You have to recall that Saskia, his late wife, had been rich, and she came with a good dowry. I don’t doubt that Rembrandt loved her, but the money would have been a definite bonus.’

‘So people would buy pretty much anything Rembrandt painted?’

‘Yes,’ Samuel agreed. ‘And as everyone wanted work in the manner of Rembrandt, that was how his pupils painted. They wanted to be successful, after all. Especially someone like Govert Flinck, one of the best pupils. He realised early on that by adopting Rembrandt’s style he would never be short of work.’ Samuel passed Marshall another book, showing him a painting by Flinck of a man in a plumed hat. ‘In fact, in 1675, Sandrart commented that Flinck’s portraits were “
judged to be more felicitous in the exactness and in the pleasing quality of the portrayal
”.’

Marshall raised an eyebrow. ‘He was thought to be better than Rembrandt?’

‘By some then, not now,’ Samuel replied. ‘In fact in the first half of the 1630s, when Flinck was working closely
with Rembrandt, a great number of Rembrandtesque portraits and tronies – head only studies – were turned out.’

‘Which they were
both
painting?’

‘Yes. And which benefited them all, I imagine, particularly Rembrandt and his dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh.’