Painter of Time

by Matthew O'Connell

  He shrugged his shoulders to emphasize that this was just the way it was, and then turned back to the painting. He set the cloth down and then proceeded to mix some more pigments with the egg mixture, adding them to his palette.

  “I have never tried to restore an impressionist painting. I would not be comfortable doing it. Those artists saw color and used paints and textures very differently than I do. We all have our comfort zones, so to speak, and mine tends to fall somewhere in Italy between 1220 and 1480. Outside of that, I would imagine that both my palette and my technique would need to change. I am not sure I would be able to adapt.” He paused and then laughed. “Fortunately for me, there are very few people who focus on this time period, so I have never had to look very hard for work. Somehow, it keeps me busy.”

  Mackenzie was glad to hear him laugh. She tended to ask a lot of questions. Her dad always called her Curious George. He actually bought a Curious George stuffed monkey for her on her eighth birthday, which she still had. Sometimes she felt that she asked too many questions and was afraid that people might take it the wrong way. Like she was prying. She wasn’t, at least it didn’t seem so to her. It was just hard for her to let things go once she got them in her head. She leaned forward on her stool with her hands on her thighs.

  “Okay, that makes sense. I guess you’re right in terms of general color schemes for artists from similar regions and general time frames.”

  He continued painting quietly before responding. “Remember that technology moved a lot slower back then than it does now. Artists apprenticed under other artists and they tended to use the same colors and techniques that had been handed down from one teacher to another. The number of pigments available was also significantly less than what you find today. You can go online and find fifty shades of blue already ground, mixed and ready to use. Back then you had about three, and for some colors, maybe just one. Artists had to learn to build their color palettes from those basic colors, which ultimately limited to some extent the colors you see in their paintings.”

  “That makes a lot of sense,” she admitted. “Okay, I’m going to stop bugging you and let you concentrate on your work.”

  “Your questions are good ones. You are not bugging me. Besides, it helps pass the time. Touching up the Madonna’s robes can get a bit tiresome.”

  While it did make sense to her that artists in a particular era would use similar color schemes, it still seemed odd that he could accurately match the work of four separate artists across a time span longer than the history of the United States, with the exact same palette of colors. Her observation did seem to catch him by surprise, though. It seemed like he needed to give it a lot more thought than he usually did in answering her questions. Maybe, like he said, it was something that he never really thought of before.

  Chapter 17

  Florence, Italy, April, 1437

  Bored with life, childish, and impossible to please was how Fra. Lippi summed up Donatella Alessi’s nature. In some ways he felt sorry for her, but realized that there were many more deserving individuals who deserved pity than spoiled young women who had been given everything, expected all of it, and appreciated none of it. Donatella served as the model for the Madonna in his latest painting, which was now finished, as was, fortunately, his association with her.

  Her husband, Giuseppe, had paid for the entire painting himself, which now sat in the Chiesa di San Lorenzo, the Medici’s home church.

  Lippi remembered the day, almost a year ago, that Giuseppe came to his studio to petition the work. Decked out in elaborate silk robes with diamond and gold rings almost falling off his fingers in an ostentatious show of wealth, Giuseppe was just the type of client who Lippi seemed to attract as of late. Rich, ambitious and willing to do anything to curry favor from the church and, perhaps more importantly, the Medici. Lippi had recently taken it as a personal challenge to see how ridiculous a price he could ask such distastefully successful individuals for his services. He listened carefully to what Alessi wanted and then matter-of-factly gave him a price that was five times what he normally thought was reasonable. Up to this point, four times the reasonable amount had been his record, so this would be a personal best. He poured a glass of wine for his guest and one for himself, eased back in his chair, and waited for Giuseppe’s response.

  Of course, as a shrewd businessman, Alessi tried to negotiate a better price and countered with a price that was half of what Lippi had offered. Lippi listened to his rationale, which he had to admit was quite sound. But at this point in his career, as the premier painter in Florence, and even more importantly, as the favorite artist of Cosimo de’ Medici, he didn’t have to negotiate on price. He had come to realize that indifference, fame and talent were powerful chips in the negotiating process. He crossed his palms casually, looking distractedly at the calluses that the paintbrush had worn over time on his fingers. He nonchalantly told Alessi that he understood his position, and his counter-offer was reasonable. He smiled graciously and offered the names of several artists who he thought could do a wonderful job for that price, and possibly even less. He would be happy to make a personal introduction if Signori Alessi liked.

  He watched with guilty pleasure as Giuseppe stammered and backtracked his way into agreeing to Lippi’s original asking price. They always did, thought Lippi. The one thing Alessi insisted upon was that his young wife, Donatella, serve as the model for the Madonna. The words “young wife” never failed to catch Lippi’s attention. He replied casually that he would make the final determination as to her suitability, but that he was open to using Donatella if that was Signori Alessi’s wish. He, of course, would need to meet with her in person to make such a determination.

  Lippi often wondered if it was all those years spent in forced celibacy at the hands of the Dominicans that drove him to chase women as voraciously now that he wasn’t associated with the monastery. It certainly had something to do with it. Whether it was caused by pent-up frustration or an act of defiance, he wasn’t sure. Probably a bit of both. Whatever it was, he had to admit that he was not only drawn to and enticed by attractive women, but he was actually quite good at seducing them as well. The feigned indifference, his talent with the brush, his fame and tight connections with the Medici, as well as his boyishly handsome good looks tended to melt even the iciest fortresses. He smiled inwardly when Alessi made his request, which was actually a way for Alessi to save face in the negotiating process. Little did he know that it was also a prime opportunity for Lippi to seduce his wife, assuming, of course, that she met his standards.

  Their first meeting took place in his studio in Giuseppe’s presence. Donatella had been raised by a wealthy Florentine family. As such, she was aloof, bored and spoiled. She pouted like a young child when she didn’t get her way and she obviously knew how to control Giuseppe, who was fifteen years her senior and not particularly handsome. Lippi, however, was a master at his craft. While she pretended to be above all of this, he knew that every woman in Florence would give her eyeteeth to have him paint them as the Madonna in one of his masterpieces, especially one that would hang in the Medici’s church.

  Eyeteeth, however, were not on Lippi’s shopping list. He approached his work with a detached professional demeanor, focusing only on the task at hand. He positioned and repositioned her in various poses, made her look up, down, left, and right. He took notes and made the occasional stray comment without giving away anything. At the end of the session he relayed his observations to them in an almost clinical manner. He went over her bone structure, the slope of her nose, the size of her forehead, her long arms and large hands. There were many flaws that made her less than an ideal model. He paused for effect as he detected a look of panic in both Donatella and Giuseppe, at which point he knew that he had her. He broke the tension by saying that despite all of those imperfections, there was something captivating, perhaps even magical about her eyes. The sadness, the distant stare was mesmerizing. He could transform those beautiful eyes into
something that people would talk about for hundreds of years.

  Like a master puppeteer, he played them both to perfection. Giuseppe shook his hand profusely and kissed him on both cheeks, expressing his admiration and gratitude with tears of joy, and relief. He nodded casually to Donatella, who looked at him like she had probably never looked at another man before. She was his, and they both knew it, without having to say a single word. He told Giuseppe that he would need to work extensively with Donatella on her posing to come up with just the right look. You just can’t rush these things, he explained, which of course Giuseppe agreed to without hesitation. Lippi realized that Giuseppe probably welcomed the opportunity to keep Donatella occupied with something that would engage her so that she didn’t spend all day moping about the house complaining.

  Over the next six months Donatella came to his studio three times a week. Much of the time was spent talking, sipping wine and eating savory cakes. Some of the time was spent posing and trying on various outfits, hand chosen by Lippi and paid for by Giuseppe. And, of course, some of the time was spent making love, whether in his studio or in the attached bedroom, which he found to be much more comfortable. She willingly gave herself to him, whenever and wherever he pleased. She was young, beautiful in a classical way, and eager to please the great artist who had stolen her heart.

  Lippi, of course, enjoyed his time with her, just as he enjoyed his time with countless other beautiful women of the city. Florence, Siena, and all of the surrounding countryside provided an endless stream of fresh produce for him to sample. His primary constraint in terms of his carnal conquests was time, because at this stage of his career neither money nor beautiful women were in short supply. But over the course of their eight-month relationship, he saw Donatella for the spoiled child that she really was. Worse yet, she was cold hearted and conniving as well. She spoke ill of her husband, her parents, and almost everyone she knew. Lippi himself was bored with her and thought that perhaps she was bored with him as well. He really didn’t care.

  He finished the painting, which turned out to be one of his greatest masterpieces; Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels. He gave his Madonna the vacant, far-off stare that reflected Donatella’s shallow nature, albeit in an alluring and slightly mischievous way. Upon completion, the painting was unveiled in an elaborate ceremony paid for by Signori Alessi and attended by elite of Florence, including the Medici. It was hard for him to tell whether Donatella liked his depiction of her or not. He didn’t care one way or another because he was convinced that she was incapable of liking anything anyway. With the painting completed, so too was their relationship. While she asked him if she could see him again, he advised her that it was better to move forward, to focus her attention on her husband who obviously loved her.

  Such was his life at this point. Painting, seducing beautiful women, and carousing with the rich and famous of the world’s greatest city, was all that he had wanted and he took full advantage of it.

  Chapter 18

  It was quiet. Everyone had left for the evening, the last of them making their way out a little more than an hour earlier. Mackenzie was in the bowels of the Cloisters by herself. She enjoyed the quiet. She always had. There were a number of loose ends she wanted to wrap up on her newest restoration project. This was the second Lippi she had worked on in the past two months. She loved his style, his choice of colors and the way that the key players in his paintings seemed to be looking right at you, like they knew you were looking at them. While there were more celebrated artists from that period, she somehow felt a personal connection with Lippi.

  This painting was actually in good shape. There were just a couple of minor touch ups that needed to be made to bring it back to its original glory. Not bad for a painting that had been around for more than five hundred years. She was almost finished with her review and documentation of the piece. She wanted to wrap it up that evening if at all possible so they could begin the restoration process in the next couple of days. This particular piece, Madonna and Child with Stories from the Life of St. Anne, was scheduled to be back at the Met in two weeks, so there was some urgency to getting things finished quickly. By this point she had worked with Anthony for just over a year and he had confidence in her ability to accurately and completely document an entire painting as well as lay out an initial plan for the restoration process. She relished his trust in her.

  As she made her way through the painting, making comments regarding various components, she paused. She moved the magnifying glass closer to focus on something she hadn’t seen before. The foreground of the painting was dominated by a young, beautiful, sad looking Madonna with a cherubic baby Jesus on her lap. In the background were eight women performing various functions, such as carrying baskets and attending to a woman, Mary’s mother Anne, seated in bed with the young Mary at her birth. That wasn’t unusual at all; in fact, it was quite common in paintings of that genre. What struck her about this one was the hand of one of the women, the young maiden at the far left hand side of the painting. More specifically, the little finger on the maiden’s right hand, which was long. The woman was only a minor figure in the painting and was largely obscured by another woman in front of her. She seemed to fade into the background of the wall, her hand and fingers an almost insignificant detail. You could barely make it out unless you specifically looked for it. Mackenzie wondered why Lippi would go out of his way to make one of her fingers so long.

  She felt an eerie tingle down the back of her neck. She had seen the exact same thing less than six months ago when they were working on the Bernardo Daddi restoration. Unable to focus on the Lippi painting anymore, she pulled up her notes on Daddi’s Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints. It didn’t take her long to find her description of the woman’s finger in that painting. It was the same little finger on her right hand. She pulled up the enlarged picture she had taken of the woman and zoomed onto her finger. Comparing the image on her screen and the painting in front of her, there was a striking resemblance. Not just the hand and the finger, but the two women looked incredibly similar; same hair color and length. It was hard to make out her eye color, but both women had dark eyes. They both had gentle, attractive faces as well, especially when compared to the other women in the painting, even the Virgin herself.

  She and Anthony had recently finished another Lippi painting, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels. She didn’t recall seeing anything unusual in that painting. She pulled it up on her screen and also pulled out her notes on the painting. There were only four figures in that painting, the Madonna and the baby Jesus, and two angels in the background. Only the fingers on Mary’s right hand were visible in the painting. The little finger was indeed the shortest of all fingers, like it should be.

  She then pulled up an online directory of all known Lippi paintings. There were eighty-six distinct paintings, including frescos and triptychs. Of those there were twenty-seven where a woman other than the Virgin Mary appeared. She was able to identify one woman with a long pinkie finger in ten of those twenty-seven. All of them were on the woman’s right hand. She made magnified copies of each of these women and printed off color prints for each painting. Her heart was racing at this point. This was beyond strange.

  She immediately pulled up the database on Bernardo Daddi. There were forty-two Daddi paintings in the database. Many others, she knew, were frescoes on walls in Florence and throughout Italy that had deteriorated badly over the years and were almost now un-restorable. Of the paintings she reviewed, the woman with the long finger appeared in three of them, including the Annunciation that they had restored earlier. Like she had with the Lippi paintings, she zoomed in on the woman and her finger and then printed out a high quality copy of it.

  Time passed without her even knowing. When she glanced at the clock on the wall it was almost ten. She’d been looking through these paintings for over three hours. Mackenzie organized the stack of color prints she had made and put them into a protective p
ouch and then into her leather portfolio bag. It just didn’t make sense. Why would this woman with the long finger keep turning up in Lippi’s paintings and also in some of Daddi’s, two painters separated by almost sixty years? Could this just be some strange coincidence?

  Although she hadn’t finished her documentation, she couldn’t concentrate on her work anymore that evening. Besides, being all alone in the basement of a fourteenth century building at night, even if it was in a twenty-first century room, started to feel a lot spookier than it had before she had found the woman with the finger. She packed up her stuff, covered the painting with a protective cloth, and made her way to her car. As she drove home she wondered what Anthony would say about the fingers. Would he laugh at her? Was she being silly? Maybe sleeping on it and approaching it in the morning would help her get some clarity. She sure hoped so.

  Chapter 19

  Is that all you’re going to eat, Kenz?” asked her father as she wolfed down a slice of toast slathered with apple butter. She sipped coffee out of her insulated travel mug as she got ready to head out the door.

  “Yeah, I wanted to get an early start this morning,” replied Mackenzie while she chewed.

  “Well, that’s not really enough to get you through till lunch,” he said as he skimmed the sports section. “I can scramble you up a couple of eggs in two minutes flat. Wanna time me?”

  She laughed. “No, Dad, I’m fine. I’ll get something at lunch.” She reached over to the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter and grabbed a banana. “This should be all I need.”