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The English Assassin :: Silva Daniel
Страница: 83 из 209”
Isherwood pressed the button on the intercom. “Irina, would you be a love and bring a pot of coffee up to the exposition room? And some of those biscuits too. The ones with the nuts. And hold all my calls, please. There’s a good girl.”
GABRIEL knew the basics about the Nazi rape of Europe ’s art treasures during the Second World War. Adolf Hitler had dreamed of building a massive Führermuseum in his hometown of Linz and filling it with the world’s finest collection of Old Masters and Northern European art. In 1938, he initiated a secret operation code-named Sonderauftrag Linz -Special Operation Linz-to acquire art for the Führermuseum by any means necessary. During the last months of peace, his agents secretly toured the museums, galleries, and private collections of Europe, selecting works for the future museum. When war broke out, Hitler’s art thieves followed hard on the heels of the Wehrmacht. Hundreds of thousands of paintings, sculptures and objets d’art quickly vanished, many of them Jewish-owned. Thousands of works, valued at roughly $30 billion, were still missing.
Gabriel knew that Julian Isherwood could fill in the rest of the details for him. Isherwood was an above-average art dealer who’d had his fair share of triumphs, but when it came to the Nazi plunder of Europe he was something of an expert. He had written dozens of articles for newspapers and trade publications and five years earlier had coauthored a well-received book on the subject. Despite the pleas of his publisher, he had steadfastly refused to reveal his personal motivation for pursuing the topic. Gabriel was among the handful of people who knew why: Julian Isherwood had lived through it.
“In 1940, London and New York didn’t matter,” Isherwood began. “ Paris was the center of the art world, and the center of the Paris art scene was the rue de la Boétie in the eighth arrondissement. The famous Paul Rosenberg had his gallery at number twenty-one. Picasso lived across a courtyard at number twenty-three with his wife, the Russian dancer Olga Koklova. Across the street stood the gallery of Étienne Bignou. Georges Wildenstein had his gallery at number fifty-seven. Paul Guillaume and Josse Hessel were also there.”
“And your father?”
“Isakowitz Fine Arts was next to Paul Rosenberg’s. We lived in a flat above the main exposition rooms. Picasso was ‘Uncle Pablo’ to me. I spent hours at his flat. Sometimes, he’d let me watch him paint. Olga used to give me chocolate and cake until I was sick. It was an enchanted existence.
Isherwood pressed the button on the intercom. “Irina, would you be a love and bring a pot of coffee up to the exposition room? And some of those biscuits too. The ones with the nuts. And hold all my calls, please. There’s a good girl.”
GABRIEL knew the basics about the Nazi rape of Europe ’s art treasures during the Second World War. Adolf Hitler had dreamed of building a massive Führermuseum in his hometown of Linz and filling it with the world’s finest collection of Old Masters and Northern European art. In 1938, he initiated a secret operation code-named Sonderauftrag Linz -Special Operation Linz-to acquire art for the Führermuseum by any means necessary. During the last months of peace, his agents secretly toured the museums, galleries, and private collections of Europe, selecting works for the future museum. When war broke out, Hitler’s art thieves followed hard on the heels of the Wehrmacht. Hundreds of thousands of paintings, sculptures and objets d’art quickly vanished, many of them Jewish-owned. Thousands of works, valued at roughly $30 billion, were still missing.
Gabriel knew that Julian Isherwood could fill in the rest of the details for him. Isherwood was an above-average art dealer who’d had his fair share of triumphs, but when it came to the Nazi plunder of Europe he was something of an expert. He had written dozens of articles for newspapers and trade publications and five years earlier had coauthored a well-received book on the subject. Despite the pleas of his publisher, he had steadfastly refused to reveal his personal motivation for pursuing the topic. Gabriel was among the handful of people who knew why: Julian Isherwood had lived through it.
“In 1940, London and New York didn’t matter,” Isherwood began. “ Paris was the center of the art world, and the center of the Paris art scene was the rue de la Boétie in the eighth arrondissement. The famous Paul Rosenberg had his gallery at number twenty-one. Picasso lived across a courtyard at number twenty-three with his wife, the Russian dancer Olga Koklova. Across the street stood the gallery of Étienne Bignou. Georges Wildenstein had his gallery at number fifty-seven. Paul Guillaume and Josse Hessel were also there.”
“And your father?”
“Isakowitz Fine Arts was next to Paul Rosenberg’s. We lived in a flat above the main exposition rooms. Picasso was ‘Uncle Pablo’ to me. I spent hours at his flat. Sometimes, he’d let me watch him paint. Olga used to give me chocolate and cake until I was sick. It was an enchanted existence.