Free The Art Forger by B A Shapiro Page A

friend once told me that when she walks into a library anywhere in the world, the smell makes her feel instantly at home. That’s what Al’s does for me.
    What is unexpected is Al. The first few times I came in, I thought Al was a clerk, that the real Al, the owner, who I pictured as an elderly, grizzly type, was off checking inventory in the back room. Even when she told me her name was Al, it took me a while to make the connection. Al as in Alvina. On the outside, she’s a chic, handsome woman, and on the inside, she’s a mother hen.
    “Beautiful Claire!” she cries as I walk in the door. She steps from around her high counter and gives me a hug. “I figured you’d be in this week. That you must be getting short on supplies.” She stands back. “I think you’ve lost weight. Are you forgetting to eat again? Do you want to blow away in the wind?” She sighs. “Of course, on you it looks fabulous.”
    “And on you it doesn’t?”
    Al’s deep-coppery skin, extraordinary cheekbones, and willowy grace bring to mind those Kenyan runners who always win the Boston Marathon, although she claims to be the scion of American slaves. She has close-cropped hair and at least a half-dozen piercings in each ear, from which hang all manner of wondrous earrings.
    After I settle up my account, I head toward the back of the store to pick up a few things I need to begin working on Bath. I’m nowhere near ready to start in on the actual painting, but as I study and prepare, I can be stripping the Meissonier, which, depending on the condition of the canvas, could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
    I grab some acetone for solvent and rectified petroleum for restrainer as well as a bunch of packages of cotton wool; Meissonier’s painting is large, and I’m going to need to change cloths frequently to keep the canvas clean. I add a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some blotting paper, figuring the old sizing will be yellowed and need bleaching. Who would have ever thought that Ellen Bonanno’s authenticity obsession would come in so handy? During her Repro classes, we all rolled our eyes when she made us strip a canvas, knowing there was no way Repro would ever spring for such an expensive process.
    When I actually start painting my version of Bath, I’m going to need everything from brushes to paint to varnish, but I haven’t figured out exactly what kinds Degas used, so these will have to wait for a later trip. But I do pick up plenty of silver paint for Xavier before I head home.
    When I get back to the studio, instead of starting to strip the Meissonier, I sit down in the chair in front of Bath. I lift the two books of Degas’ sketches from their pile on the floor and begin to browse through them. But even as I switch from casual surfing to close examination, I don’t see what I’m looking for. It’s very weird. I’ve found a number of sketches of Bath’ s Simone and Jacqueline, but I can’t find any of Françoise. Degas was obsessive about his drawings, renowned for doing twenty or thirty studies for a single painting. So where are the studies for Françoise?
    Of course, they must exist somewhere, or at least have existed at one time. Neither of my books claims to include every sketch Degas ever made, but one is called, Edgar Degas: Sketches and Drawings, 1875–1900, which is when Degas did his bather series. Degas is also well known for using the same models, even the same sketches, in multiple paintings. And while he would change the composition of each work, the same model, often in quite similar poses, would show up from one painting to the next. This constancy gives his series paintings an extraordinary cohesiveness.
    I find what appear to be a few compositional drawings for Bath, but while Simone and Jacqueline are identical to the women in the painting in front of me, Françoise is not. In the sketch, Not-Françoise has a different body, and she’s standing rather than sitting, creating an