Free The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva Page B

to remain confidential for all eternity. But in some circumstances--with the passage of enough time or for the right amount of money--a dealer could be cajoled into opening his books.
    Gabriel entrusted that delicate task to Julian Isherwood, who had always enjoyed a cordial professional relationship with the De Vries gallery despite its questionable past. It took several hours of heated telephone negotiations, but Isherwood finally convinced Geert de Vries, great-grandson of the founder, to surrender the records. Isherwood would never tell Gabriel the exact price he had paid for the documents, only that it had been steep. "Remember one thing about art dealers," he said. "They are the lowest of God's creatures. And economic times like these bring out the worst in them."
    Gabriel and Chiara monitored the final stages of the negotiations from a charming suite at the Ambassade Hotel. After receiving word that the deal had been finalized, they left the hotel a few minutes apart and made the short walk along the Herengracht to the gallery, Chiara on one side of the canal, Gabriel on the other. Geert de Vries had left photocopies of the records at the front desk in a buff envelope marked ROSSI . Gabriel slipped it into his bag and bade the receptionist a pleasant afternoon in Italian-accented English. Stepping outside, he saw Chiara leaning against a lamppost on the opposite bank of the canal. Her scarf was knotted in a way that meant she had not noticed surveillance of any sort. She followed him to a cafe in the Bloemenmarkt and drank hot chocolate while he worked his way laboriously through the documents.
    "There's a reason why the Dutch speak so many languages. Their own is impenetrable."
    "Can you make it out?"
    "Most of it. The person who bought the painting in 1919 was a banker named Andries van Gelder. He must have been hit hard by the Great Depression. When he sold it in 1936, he did so at a considerable loss."
    "And the next owner?"
    "A man named Jacob Herzfeld."
    "Are Dutch boys ever named Jacob?"
    "They're usually called Jacobus."
    "So he was Jewish?"
    "Probably."
    "When was the next sale?"
    "Nineteen sixty-four at the Hoffmann Gallery of Lucerne."
    "Switzerland? Why would Jacob Herzfeld sell his painting there?"
    "I'm betting it wasn't him."
    "Why?"
    "Because unless Jacob Herzfeld was extremely lucky, he probably wasn't alive in 1964. Which means it's quite possible we've just discovered a very large hole in the painting's provenance."
    "So what are we going to do now?"
    Gabriel shoved the documents back into the envelope.
    "Find out what happened to him."

15
    AMSTERDAM
    P ortrait of a Young Woman, oil on canvas, 104 by 86 centimeters, was painted in a large house just west of Amsterdam's old center. Rembrandt purchased the property in 1639 for the price of thirteen thousand guilders, an enormous sum even for a painter of his stature and one that would eventually lead to his financial undoing. At the time, the street was known as Sint Antonisbreestraat. Later, due to a change in the neighborhood's demographics, it would be renamed Jodenbreestraat, or Jewish Broad Street. Why Rembrandt chose to live in such a place has long been a matter of debate. Was it because he harbored a secret affinity for Judaism? Or did he choose to reside in the district because it was home to many other painters and collectors? Whatever the case, one thing is beyond dispute. The greatest painter of Holland's Golden Age lived and worked among Amsterdam's Jews.
    Shortly after Rembrandt's death, a number of large synagogues were constructed near the opposite end of Jodenbreestraat around the Visserplein and Meijerplein. The redbrick buildings somehow managed to survive the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, though most of the people who prayed there did not. Nestled within a complex of four old Ashkenazi synagogues is the primary keeper of this terrible memory, the Jewish Historical Museum. After passing through the magnetometer at the front