Strange Things I’ve Learned Studying Art

Now that I’ve been studying art history, I’ve noticed that it is hard to stop being a historian.  I find myself frequently studying the artist’s personal history more than the aesthetics of the artist’s work.  Though it is just a subtle difference, I’m probably doing it wrong.  

Take Vincent Van Gogh, for example: I spent a couple of days reading about whether or not he was murdered or committed suicide, despite the fact that there is no way to definitively prove it one way or the other.  (Though the lack of gunpowder residue on his hands is very interesting:  It is almost impossible to fire a black powder weapon without having…. there I go again.)

Van Gogh was assuredly batshit crazy, with more than one infamous example of looney behavior to prove it.  He once put his hand directly over a candle, threatening to leave it there until his first cousin (who by all accounts was terrified of him) agreed to marriage.  This might have been an interesting experiment had not her father simply blown out the candle and banished Vincent from the house.

You have to wonder if Van Gogh’s streetcar hadn’t originally jumped the tracks, so to speak, at a young age.  On his daily walk to school, Vincent passed a grave where a tombstone bore his own name.  The grave was that of his own brother, who had died before the artist was born, and his parents gave their next child the same name.

This recycling of names may indeed warp the sanity of artists.  Salvador Dali not only carried the name of a deceased older brother, but his parents both encouraged and shared his lifelong belief that he was the reincarnation of his brother.  

The backstory about art frequently fascinates me more than the actual art.    I’ve written several times about how art has changed hands because of wars or royal marriages, and I confess to being fascinated by art forgeries and art theft.  A good example would be the Mona Lisa.  The painting itself is rather boring and every time I see a copy of it, I wonder why the artist never gave the poor woman any eyebrows.  But, the idea that the only men in history who could claim the painting as their personal property are the artist, the King of France, Napoleon, and the Italian peasant who stole it and admired it in his one room apartment, is endlessly fascinating.  

Or take the work of Christo for example:  As an artist, Christo is known for huge extravagant works of art, such as building a cloth wall 24.5 miles long, constructing floating Styrofoam bridges linking islands, or erecting 3,100 blue umbrellas in California—then moving the whole installation to Japan.  Hell, if the artist had lived long enough, he would have filled the Grand Canyon with multicolored ping-pong balls and wrapped the moon in purple chiffon.  His works were outrageous and challenged even a poor dumb ol’ country boy like me to think about what is art.

Note.  Christo did not work alone, for most of his professional life he was partnered with his wife.  Properly, the work should be credited to Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon.  And now, you know why their work is usually just credited to Christo.

For all his grandiose projects, when I think of art, the piece that first comes to mind is that of a simple wheelbarrow.  In the late Fifties, Christo began to create artwork that consisted of wrapping objects.  Called the work his Inventory, his first object was to wrap a simple can of spray paint.  Over time, the objects kept increasing in size and complexity.  Christo died this last May, before his last great installation could be completed, but the project is going forward in his memory.  If all goes well, about this time next year L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped will be ready for viewing—assuming that someday the virus will be gone and we get to travel to Paris again.

In November, 1963, however, Christo was still doing relatively smaller objects and had not yet earned an international reputation.  After blocking a Paris alley with 240 barrels, a work he called Berlin Wall, Christo was invited to have a show at the Galleria del Leone, in Venice, the only contemporary art gallery in the city at that time.  Gallery workers were surprised when Christo arrived with more tools than finished pieces, obviously intending to create new work for the show.

In the courtyard of the gallery, Christo spotted an aging wheelbarrow, the metal tarnished and rusting, the wood splintered and stained by the countless loads the wheelbarrow had transported.  The handles were worn smooth by the rough hands of the workmen who had used it over the years.   Having escaped oppressive Communist rule in Bulgaria, Christ identified with the wheelbarrow—it, too, was a stateless nomadic object constantly on the move. 

Christo wrapped a formless old mattress in an opaque cloth, securing the bundle in the wheelbarrow with rough ropes.  He called the work, Package On Wheelbarrow.  Christo is challenging the viewer’s imagination.

The gallery put the work in the window, and it rather quickly drew lots of criticism, some of it from other galleries who thought a common wheelbarrow was not a fitting display on a street where the other gallery windows displayed some rather expensive art work.  It was more of an assault on the economics of the art world than the aesthetics.

That type of criticism was to be expected, but the gallery was surprised to learn that the Bishop of Venice was also deeply offended.  Eventually, the Bishop ordered the local police to close the gallery, which they did under the pretext of claiming the gallery was acting dishonestly for presenting a common tool of a workman as an object of art.  Only after several appeals was the gallery allowed to reopen, and then only after they had removed the offending wheelbarrow.  

The real reason the show was halted and the wheelbarrow was removed was simply because the bishop claimed the unknown wrapped object was “obscene”.  And, every time I hear about Christo, my mind races to that wheelbarrow and I ask myself the same unanswerable question:

Just what the hell did the bishop think was wrapped up in that tarp?

A Day in the Park

It was a beautiful fall day, and as his destination was only a few blocks past the other side of Central Park, the man decided to forego using the subway and enjoy a walk in the park.

Taking a short cut across the center of the park loosely paralleling 72nd Street, he was only about a hundred yards into the park when he spotted the man in the electric wheelchair, squarely centered in the middle of the path.  As he got closer, he noticed that the man was pushing hard against the large rear wheels of the chair, desperately trying to get the stalled chair to move forward.

As he walked closer, he asked, “Having a problem?”

“Yes, my chair just stopped and now everything is dead.  I think it’s an electrical problem, but I can’t disengage the gears.  I’ve got to meet my sister in front of the museum.”  Once again, the chair-bound man used both of his arms to push on the wheels on either side of his chair, but only managed to move the heavy chair forward about a foot.

Looking past the wheelchair, the man could see the top of the Museum of Natural History directly ahead, but it was still more than halfway across the park.  Looking at his watch, he realized that he still had some time left before his appointment, and he really couldn’t ignore the plight of the man in the chair.

“Hi, my name’s Jack.  Let me give you a hand.”  

Walking behind the chair, he grasped the two handles and pushed towards the museum in the distance.  Immediately, he was surprised to see that despite pushing forcefully against the chair, it would just barely move.

“Thank you.  I’m Ben.  I really appreciate this, I don’t know what I would do if I missed my sister.  We’re visiting and I don’t know this city at all.”

Grunting with effort, Jack leaned into the chair, pushing as hard as he could.  Though the chair moved, it felt like the chair had no wheels, and that he was pushing a boulder across the sidewalk.

“Can you disengage the motor or something? It just barely moves.”

“It doesn’t release,” Ben answered.  “This is a new chair, and everything is electric, even the transmission.  I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Jack continued to push the chair, but it was slow hard work and no one was volunteering to help.  “Damn,” Jack thought.  “I can’t leave him now, but this is impossible.”

Little by little, the two men and the chair inched down the sidewalk, getting closer and closer to Central Park West.  As they inched past the Turtle Pond, Jack glanced between the trees and noticed a man admiring the statue of the two lovers.

Standing alone in a small clearing, the wizard admired the statue of a pair of lovers, a man and a woman holding hands, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes.  Just by looking at the pair, he could tell that the sculptor had managed to capture a moment in time:  the two were just about to fall into each other’s embrace and share a kiss.

Year in and year out, through all the seasons, the pair were the epitome of unfulfilled love.  Everyone could see the beauty of a great love in their eyes, but, being especially empathetic, the wizard could feel the endless sadness that the two lovers could never complete that for which they had desperately yearned for years.

Though the wizard had frequently admired the statue, today he had a little free time on his hands.  It was a beautiful fall day, and the wizard was in an exceptionally good mood.  As he walked closer to the statue, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the pathos of the pair and acted impulsively.   

Glancing around, he discovered that, except for a man focused on pushing a wheel chair down the sidewalk, he was completely alone.   Drawing his wand out from beneath his jacket, he waved the wand towards the two lovers.

“AD VITUM!”, he chanted.

And instantly, the statues began to move, as the pair of lovers awakened, as if from a deep sleep, coming to life.

“My friends,” said the wizard.  “I am afraid that even my magic can only give you life for a single hour.  I suggest you use your time wisely.”

Immediately, the two lovers giggled and jumped behind some nearby bushes. For quite a while, all the wizard heard was the rustling of the bushes and quiet happy giggles.  Respecting their privacy, the wizard waited on a nearby bench, satisfied that finally the two young lovers would find happiness together.

Finally, the two lovers, hand in hand, came out of the bushes with big smiles on their faces.

“I see you have used your time well," said the wizard. "But, you still have almost 30 minutes left if you would like to do it again.”

With huge smiles on their faces, the pair nodded their heads and hurriedly jumped back behind the bushes.  "This time," the male statue said, "You hold the pigeon down while I shit on him."

Meanwhile, Jack had sweated through his shirt, but they were finally nearing the museum. He could hardly believe that he had pushed this cumbersome chair all the way across the middle of the park.  

“Where are you going to meet your sister?” Jack asked.  He really didn’t want to push that impossible chair a foot further than he had to.

“She said to meet her in front of the museum and we could go look at the paintings together,” Ben answered.  “She’s an art historian.”

Jack froze and the chair stopped moving instantly.

“Art work?  This is the Museum of Natural History.  There’s no artwork in there.  Was she meeting you here or at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?”  Even as Jack said the words, he knew what the answer was going to be.

“She was going to meet me at the art museum.  But, I didn’t know where it was.”

Jack bent over, putting his hands on his knees, breathing deeply.

“This is Central Park and the Met is on one side of the park and the Natural History Museum is on the other side, on Fifth Avenue, pretty close to where we started.”

Ben, obviously upset, answered, “What am I going to do?  I have to meet my sister...”

“I have an idea,” Jack interrupted.  It was an idea born of desperation, for he knew damn well he could never push that damn wheelchair back across the entire park.  Pulling his wallet from his back pocket, he pulled a couple of bills out and thrust them into Ben’s hands.

“Look, I have to go, but New York has special wheelchair accessible taxis.  You’re on Central Park West, and it should be no problem to flag one down.  Have them take you to either the Met or back to your hotel.”

And with that, Jack rushed off, while behind him, Ben was profusely thanking him.

Ben continued to watch the man rush off as he pocketed the bills.  Wondering why the men never looked back, he slid his right hand under the armrest and flipped the recessed switch.  Immediately, the chair began to hum and slightly vibrate.  Resting a single finger on the joystick, Ben quickly maneuvered the chair around and moved a hundred yards back into the park, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk where he had a good view of the top of the three-story Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Once again flipping off the power to the chair, Ben thought to himself, “It really is another beautiful day in the park.”

They Had It Coming

I love the musical Chicago.  It’s a great play, a good CD for the car, and I even enjoyed reading the play, but none of that compares to watching the movie starring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere.  

Yes, I know the movie is almost twenty years old, but let’s face it—there is kind of a shortage of good movies being released this year.  And since next year’s movies aren’t being filmed right now…  I suppose that we will have to get used to the old movies, and Chicago is as good a place to start as any.

There is one scene that always gets me:  the musical number, the Cell Block Tango, where the prison inmates are all singing “He had it coming!”.  Watch Catherine Zeta-Jones face as she sings it—I have no trouble at all believing that she could kill an unfaithful lover.  If filming Fatal Attraction, didn’t convince Michael Douglas to stay faithful, that number should. It is also worth remembering that the actress filmed all those difficult dance numbers while pregnant, deserving more than the Oscar she earned for her performance.  (And if that doesn’t impress you, she performed one of the dance routines the night of the Oscars, just ten days before the baby was born.)

Watching the movie got me to wondering, is any of it true?  

Maurine Dallas Watkins wrote Chicago in 1926, originally titled as Brave Little Woman, as a homework assignment while attending Yale Drama School.  The first thing every writer learns is to write what you know, and in this case, Watkins had been the beat reporter covering crime for the Chicago Tribune for eight months.  (No: The character Mary Sunshine was not a self-portrait—it was the author’s way of making fun of her female colleagues that Watkins believed were suffering from a near fatal case of bleeding heart because of their seemingly endless stories about young women becoming victims of “hot jazz and cold gin.”)

Watkins modeled the play after two spectacular crimes she had covered for the newspaper.  The first was that of Beulah May Annan.  (Try really hard not to think Roxie Hart as you read the next couple of paragraphs.)  Beulah was born in Kentucky and came to Chicago with her second husband, who worked as a mechanic at a garage.  Beulah worked as a laundress and was soon having an affair with Harry Kalstedt, a bookkeeper at the laundry.

One night, in the bedroom she shared with her husband, she shot and killed Kalstedt.  Exactly what happened depends on which story Watkins told, but the gist of it was there was a gun on the bed and while fearing for her honor and/or her life, they both reached for the gun and she was little quicker.  Since Kalstedt was shot in the back….Well, the police were a little skeptical.

It didn’t help Beulah’s flimsy alibi that, after shooting her lover, she sat down and listened to a foxtrot record, “Hula Lou”, for four hours while drinking cocktails and smoking cigarettes.  Four hours is about the time the coroner estimated that it took for Kalstedt to die while his moans and cries for help were drowned out by the sound of the foxtrot.

Somehow, her husband believed her, paid for an attorney (emptying his bank account) and stood faithfully by when Beulah said at her trial that Kalstedt had tried to kill her after she told him she was pregnant by him, forcing her to defend herself and her unborn child.  The jury believed her, and found her not guilty.  The day after the trial, she announced that she had separated from her husband and was seeking a divorce.  There was no mention of a child’s ever being born.  Beulah died of tuberculosis in 1928.

The other sensational murder story involved Belva Gaertner, an oft-married cabaret singer whom Watkins turned into Velma Kelly.  Belva had already been married once when she met and fell in love with William Gaertner, who she married, divorced, and remarried.  The two were separated when she met Walter Law and—despite Walter’s being married and having a child—they began an affair.  

On March 11, 1924, Belva was arrested after the police found the blood-soaked body of Walter sprawled across the front seat of Belva’s car.  When the police searched her apartment, they found a pile of Belva’s clothes, soaked in blood.  Belva, clearly drunk, said all she could remember was driving—and drinking—with Walter, but had no memory of the rest of the evening.  She admitted to carrying a gun, saying it was necessary to protect herself from robbers.

Watkins interviewed Belva, “No woman can love a man enough to kill him. They aren't worth it, because there are always plenty more. Walter was just a kid—29 and I'm 38. Why should I have worried whether he loved me or whether he left me? Gin and guns—either one is bad enough, but together they get you in a dickens of a mess, don't they?”

At her trial, Belva had the simplest of defenses:  Maybe Law shot himself.  Somehow, the jury believed her and she was acquitted.  

The next year, Belva married William for the third time, but he promptly divorced her, saying she had threatened to kill him.  The next year, she and William remarried and they moved to Europe.  After that, the trail gets a little cold, but the two were still together, presumably celebrating all of their anniversaries, when William died in 1948.  

By the time Belva died in 1965, she had been able to watch two different movies based on Watkin’s play, in 1927 and 1942.  When the play opened in Chicago in 1927, Belva was there on opening night.

In the movie, poor Katalin Helinski, a Hungarian immigrant, is found guilty and hanged.  Actually, the character was based on Sabella Nitti, an Italian immigrant, who was accused of holding down her husband while her boyfriend beat him to death with a sledgehammer.  However, unlike Katalin, Sabella escaped the hangman:  The jury acquitted both Sabella and her boyfriend and they quickly married after the trial.  Later, her new husband vanished under suspicious circumstances.

There is not a real-life counterpart to Roxie’s and Velma’s attorney, Billy Flynn.  In real life, there were two different attorneys, although the same prosecuting attorney tried both cases.  After his second loss, reporters asked him for a comment.  His terse reply was, “Women—just women!”

Oh, yes!  If you are wondering, when Watkins turned in her homework assignment, she received a grade of 98 percent.

The Arnolfini Portrait

Considering that the Arnolfini Portrait is a world-famous Dutch masterpiece, why is its home today the National Gallery in London?  Though the painting was bought and sold several times, the most dramatic changes in ownership were due to warfare.  If we want to put the majority of the blame on a single individual, we can, of course, blame Napoleon Bonaparte.

In contrast to so many similar paintings of this era, we know exactly who painted it:  the famous artist Jan Van Eyck.  Since his signature is in the middle of the painting, there is no argument.  The painting, shows a man and a young woman, holding hands in their bedroom.  However, about everything else, there are endless arguments. 

The couple is probably an Italian merchant and his wife (who, despite appearances, is probably not pregnant) and this painting is probably documenting their wedding.  We probably also know their names.  Or…. the woman may be dead and the painting is a commemoration.  Or....It is a painted version of a legal contract, giving the woman the right to conduct business while the husband is away.  Or….The painting could be interpreted to mean something completely different.

Note.  I’ve watched academics literally come to blows over just about nothing.  I remember a particularly loud argument about whether or not Billy the Kid was left-handed.  (He wasn’t).  I thought these arguments would vanish after I started studying art history since artists are, by nature, more culturally refined and gentle.  Well, I was half right.  The arguments are still there, but I haven’t witnessed any fistfights.  Yet.

The painting is loaded with iconography, so that each and every object might have (and has been interpreted as having) several different meanings.  The dog at the lady’s feet, for example, may represent fidelity, or lust, or may just be a wedding present from her husband.  Or it could simply be the family dog.  Or maybe Van Eyck painted the dog to hide a coffee stain.

Created in 1434, the painting originally belonged to a member of the Arnolfini family—naturally, but exactly which one is hotly debated (though it was apparently Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami, a couple who could certainly afford the cost of commissioning such a painting).   After the couple died, the double portrait apparently stayed within the family for decades, but was then sold to an international man of mystery, Diego de Guevara, a Spaniard who worked for the Duke of Burgundy, as a spy and, eventually, as an ambassador.  

It is not known exactly how Don Diego purchased the painting from the Arnolfini family, but we may know why.  The Spanish Duke appreciated great art, but occasionally he gifted art to the nobility in exchange for favors.  He gifted this painting, to the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, Marguerite of Austria.

Marguerite deserves her own blog someday, since she was engaged briefly to the King of England, she was betrothed to the future king of France, she was shipwrecked, she survived trying to commit suicide by leaping out of a tower window, she was widowed twice, and she carried around the embalmed heart of her first husband as a memento.  In her spare time, she was also the ruler of the Netherlands and the most powerful woman of her day.  Unfortunately, we don’t have time to discuss her now.

Marguerite died of gangrene in December, 1530, at the age of fifty.  Though her will left almost all of her property to her older brother, Emperor Charles V, a special provision had been made to leave the Arnolfini portrait to her niece, Marie of Hungary.  Not only would Marie receive the painting, but she would succeed Marguerite as the next Regent of the Netherlands.

Eventually, Marie, too, died young and all of her property, including the vast art collection, was left to her nephew, Philip II of Spain.  As King and head of the family, Philip II had as one of his main goals to produce male heirs to hold onto Hapsburg possessions.  Unfortunately, the Hapsburgs were also deeply committed to a centuries-long program of inbreeding that could only result in their own eventual extinction.  For example, Philip’s first wife was his first cousin twice over, while his fourth wife was his niece.  Not surprisingly, only one son survived to maturity.  Over the generations, eventually the Hapsburg line turned into imbeciles that sat in the corner and licked their own eyebrows—or at least they wanted to.

Philip truly enjoyed his art collection and he appreciated Northern artists, even expanding the collection by buying six Bosch paintings from Don Diego’s son, Felipe, to go with the Bosch artwork he had inherited from Marguerite.  The collection of art work became truly impressive.

Subsequent Hapsburg kings were less...“diligent”...about maintaining an accurate inventory of royal artworks.  Later inventories rarely include all of the artwork, particularly the works from Northern Europe.  Inbreeding rendered Charles II incapable of having children, so he ended up being the last Hapsburg king.  Spain needed a new king from a new royal family, so the matter was settled in the traditional manner:  The Bourbons of France began their rule after the War of Succession in 1710.

The new French kings did not appreciate Flemish art, and so, most of the Northern art was either ignored or simply stored.  For a long time, the Arnolfini Portrait remained the property of the king, but it sort of vanished—no one is exactly sure where it was.  Then, in 1794 after the death of King Carlos III, an inventory was taken, and the painting was rediscovered.  

The painting was then hung in a retrete.  (A modern translation would be “toilet”.)  The most likely way to explain this is that the Spanish Bourbons had not only taken over the Spanish art collection, but had adopted their vigorous program of inbreeding.  Take Carlos IV, for example, a monarch so incompetent that he can best be described as an “honorary Hapsburg”.

Both Carlos IV and his son, King Ferdinand VII were incredibly inept during a time when all of Europe was undergoing revolutions that threatened the old order.  As the two royals angrily quarreled over whose turn it was to misrule Spain, they invited their neighbor across the Pyrenees, Napoleon Bonaparte, to help them settle the dispute.

Napoleon put both fools under house arrest and placed his own brother, Joseph, on the throne of Spain.  While undoubtedly a better ruler than either of the previous monarchs—a low bar—the imposition of a Bonaparte upon the throne angered the people of Spain, touching off a civil war that eventually resulted in the invasion by the British Army, with the help of Portuguese troops. 

As the new Spanish King, Joseph began “collecting” art, which was something of a family obsession.  After his younger brother had made him the French Ambassador to Rome, Joseph had quickly stolen artworks from the Pope and had shipped them home to France.  (Unfortunately, the ship sank and all that art was lost.)  As soon as Joseph arrived in Spain, Napoleon ordered his older brother to promptly ship “50 masterpieces” to Paris for the planned Museé Napoléon.

Joseph eagerly began gathering the art, but he had no intention of shipping any of the better treasures north of the Pyrenees.  Stalling his brother repeatedly, Joseph was planning his own museum, the Museo Josefino.  In the meantime, he began looting the art from the Escorial, from various churches, and from the homes of the wealthy, storing his plunder in a damp moldy warehouse near The Prado.

The British Army was superbly led by Arthur Wellesley, the Marquis of Wellington, and the French slowly began losing control of Spain.  By January, 1813, Napoleon, realizing that Madrid was lost, blamed the failure on his brother and ordered Joseph to retreat to Valladolid, in order to hold on to Northern Spain.  Joseph, predictably waited too late to retreat, delaying while he had canvases cut from their wooden frames, and piled on top of carts that were already loaded with the king’s “special friends”.  One soldier reported that the supply train of the retreating army resembled a mobile brothel.  The disorganization was further abetted by the large number of civilians, including those who had supported the French, who clogged the roads trying to escape.

Napoleon and Joseph had both underestimated the speed at which Wellesley had pushed towards Madrid.  Joseph left much too late and by the time the army reached the town of Vitoria, it was almost too late for any escape for him.  All roads were blocked by English troops except for a narrow country road leading to the north.  After a brief skirmish, the French army simply fled.  Joseph abandoned his coach and his art treasures, fleeing towards France on horseback.  The abandoned coach also contained five million gold francs that had been meant to pay the army.

The French wagons, heavily laden with priceless treasure, promptly fell into the hands of British soldiers, who simply went wild looting the French treasures.  Despite the strict orders of General Wellesley, little of the treasure was returned to Spain and its restored King Ferdinand.  Some of the stolen artwork found its way to London, (including the Rokeby Venus) and other works turned up in France, while still other valuable pieces simply vanished.

Some reports said that the British soldiers broke off the battle early when they discovered the incredible wealth waiting to be “liberated” from the French wagons, dozens of which were labeled Domaine exterieur de S.M. l’Empereur.  General Wellesley was so furious that he wrote in a dispatch, “We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.”  The general posted guards to prevent the looting of Vitoria, but simply gave up trying to either prevent the looting of Joseph’s supply wagons or to recover the purloined treasures.

Scum or not, the British soldiers gleefully sold and traded the priceless treasure among themselves.  For weeks, masterpieces were won and lost as the soldiers gambled among themselves.  You can easily imagine the voice of a private gambling by a campfire, “I’ll see your Goya and raise you a Titian.”

The British efforts in Spain were ultimately successful:  the French left Spain and Napoleon’s Empire eventually collapsed.  In 1815, following his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, Wellesley became the Duke of Wellington.  (And we will ignore the fact that a painting by Velasquez, which once hung in the Palacio Real, is still hanging in the Duke’s London home.)

In what was claimed to be just an innocent accident, several years later, British Lieutenant-Colonel James Hay offered to sell the Arnolfini Portrait to the Prince Regent (later King George IV).  When questioned on how he came to own the Flemish masterpiece, the much-decorated Hay explained that he had purchased the painting from the owner of a French inn, where he had been recuperating from a wound suffered at the Battle of Waterloo.  The fact that Colonel Hay had also been also present at the Battle of Vitoria is a mere “coincidence”.

There are ample reasons for Hay’s wanting us to believe that he had originally purchased the art in France:  Looting was against regulations, stolen artwork was legally supposed to be returned to the rightful owner, and artwork recovered by the army that could not be returned for whatever reason, was supposed to be sold, with the proceeds used for the good of the capturing unit.  Further complicating the matter, when Wellesley tried to return the few paintings he had managed to recover to King Ferdinand, the grateful monarch magnanimously gave the paintings to Wellington.  Colonel Hay, might have been, in fact, guilty of stealing from General Wellesley, the most popular man in England.   However, if Hay had purchased the painting in France, it was his to sell.  And selling it for a profit was exactly what Hay had in mind. 

Hay had a customer in mind:  he tried to sell it to the future King of England.  After “enjoying” the painting as it hung in Carlton House, his London home, for two years, (it was hung in a little-used room on the third floor), the Prince Regent finally declined to purchase the painting from Hay—partly due to his preference to work done by English artists, but no doubt also partly due to the colonel’s somewhat questionable ownership.

When the masterpiece was returned to Hay, he kept it in his home for a decade until he was posted to Ireland as the commanding officer of the Queen’s Regiment of Dragoons.  During his absence, he loaned the painting to an acquaintance, James Wardrop, a London doctor and a family friend.  For the next thirteen years, the general saw neither the painting nor the friend. 

Doctor Wardrop did not appreciate the painting either, writing, “Colonel James Hay gave me a picture to take care of during his absence from England.  It was hung up in a bedroom, where it remained for about thirteen years, during this period it was seen by many visitors, none of whom deemed it worthy of their notice.”

During Hay’s absence, the art market slowly recovered during an unusual period of peace in Europe.  Ironically, the sudden flood of stolen Spanish artworks may have primed the pump for the sale of art.  Europe, no longer dominated by the French and their disdain for Dutch art, began to appreciate the Northern works of art, so while Hay was in Ireland, his painting slowly appreciated in value.

After the British National Gallery was formed in 1824, Colonel Hay suddenly remembered his painting, offering to sell it to the gallery for a measly six hundred pounds (roughly $70,000 in today’s money), which offer the gallery accepted.  The painting, labeled with an inventory tag of 186, remains in the gallery today.

To conclude, let us recap the provenance.  The Flemish painting of an Italian couple was purchased by a Spanish courtier, who gave it to an Austrian duchess, the former Queen of France, who left it to the queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia, who bequeathed it to the Spanish Court, where it was spirited away by the French Army led by a Corsican pretender before being recovered by a British Colonel, who briefly loaned it to an English King, before selling it to a London gallery.  

So far.

November 23, 1963

 Regular readers will be heartbroken to hear that this is not the blog I thought I would write today.  Last night, I had a vague idea that sometime today I would sit down with a cold beer and write another long and weirdly twisting tale about yet another obscure piece of artwork that was tied to Napoleon, had survived multiple wars, and had ended up someplace where you would’t expect it.  Yes, I know that I have done that about a dozen times already, but the topic keeps nibbling away at me and sooner or later (probably sooner), I will feel a compulsive need to put it on paper (again).

It was the news of Trump’s testing positive for Covid-19 late last night that changed my mind.  Hopefully, we can all agree that—regardless of our personal politics—having our president ill with a potentially deadly disease is a time for all Americans to respectfully unite in wishing the best for him.  (And if you are one of those few sad individuals whose withered hearts are so filled with hate that you are taking any measure of happiness from this, please go outside and play Hide-and-Go-Fuck-Yourself until the feeling passes.)

All day, I have been thinking back to a time when the nation lost a president—a day almost a lifetime ago.  I’m probably one of the last Americans who was alive in 1963 who hasn't previously recorded his version of the day, so allow me.

In 1963, my family was living in Azle, Texas, a small town just west of Fort Worth and close enough to it that my father commuted daily to his job in the city.  Azle was a small farming town of about 3,000 people and about half of my friends’ fathers worked in the city, too.  

I remember everyone in my elementary school class talking about President Kennedy’s coming to town and I can remember a few girls in my class being excited about Jackie Kennedy.  I can even remember a few kids talking about Vice President Lyndon Johnson—a fellow Texan who (at least where I lived) was as popular as the President. 

President Kennedy and his party were going to spend the night in downtown Fort Worth, then drive the short distance to Carswell Air Force Base, where the president would board Air Force One for the very brief, 34-mile flight to Dallas Love Field.  Though this rarely comes up in the countless documentaries about the Kennedy assassination, the drive from the Fort Worth hotel to the air force base, plus the flight to Love Field, and then the drive into Dallas—all of that was just for show and wasn’t really necessary.  It would have been far faster, easier, and cheaper just to drive from Fort Worth to Dallas down the turnpike.  The entire flight was so brief, 14 minutes, that the pilots probably had to start the landing procedure immediately after finishing the take-off procedure.

Though most Americans believe that Kennedy was one of our most popular presidents, that simply is not true.  The 1960 election was very close, and by 1963, Kennedy’s popularity in many states was slipping. The 1964 election was just a year away, so Kennedy—with Johnson in tow—was touring the Texas cities in order to court voters, which explains the brief flight to Dallas.  The arrival of Air Force One was just as newsworthy then as now, and the local Dallas television stations were sure to be on hand to report the president’s arrival.  

While it seems odd today, the newspapers published the route of the presidential motorcade for both the Fort Worth and Dallas trips.  My father noticed the proximity of the Fort Worth route to where he worked, and decided to take me to watch the president drive by, and then take me to school.  I can’t remember exactly what it was, but my older brother was doing something important at school that day and couldn’t go, while I, being in the fourth grade, was presumed to be doing nothing important.

There is really not much to tell about the actual motorcade’s driving by.  My father parked near a motel along the route, and after a wait of about an hour, what seemed like an endless procession of cars went by rather quickly—including the black Lincoln Continental with which we are all so familiar.  My father drove me back to Azle, where I arrived at school just in time to have lunch. 

Before the meal was over, the public address system announced that the president had been shot and wounded.  By the time we got back to our classroom, we heard an announcement that the president was dead.  

It is at this point that my memories get a little hazy.  I remember going to work after school (I had a part-time job as an usher) and being surprised that the theater was closed.  I remember thinking that it was impossible for the president to die—sort of a strange feeling, like the whole world was suddenly turned upside down.  That feeling intensified with the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald and the president’s funeral in the days to come.

And so very many people were upset and angry:  I can remember that most people were hurt for a very long time—something I hope that I never see again.  When someone mentions the Kennedy assassination, it is the mourning of so many people that comes first to mind.

At the time, my mother told me it brought back all the pain and uncertainty she had felt when President Roosevelt had died in 1945...the sense of uncertainty and of the world suddenly making no sense.  (My father’s memories of that day in 1945 were not quite as sharp, his being  busy “somewhere in the South Pacific” at the time.)

I guess there is one more thing I should mention.  I was there the day the motorcade passed in Fort Worth, but I don’t really have any accurate memories of it.  First off, for some reason my memories are all in black and white.  And that black Lincoln Continental?  Well, first off, the car we remember from Dallas was actually dark navy blue, and it was never in Fort Worth—it was waiting for the president at Love Field.  The car that drove by me that morning in Fort Worth, carrying the president and Mrs. Kennedy, was a white Lincoln Continental…. A car that I do not remember seeing at all.

I wonder how many times I have seen videos of that day in Dallas, all of them in black and white.  It was years later that our family got our first color television.  Newspapers, documentaries, magazine articles, television programs…. I've seen all of these numerous times.  I’ve read countless reports, still own several books on the assassination, and have even visited Dealey Plaza.  All of my “real” memories have been replaced by images I have seen endlessly over the last half century.

Frankly, I wish I remembered less of that day.  And I profoundly wish that none of us acquires any new memories of days like that.