Jeffrey Keeten's Reviews > The Modigliani Scandal

”One does not marry art. One ravishes it.”
---Edgar Degas

Dee Sleign is hanging out in small cafes, exploring fussy, tucked away museums, and doinking, like she invented sex, an older, richer boyfriend.

She is having the Paris experience.

She isn’t sure what she should do with the rest of her life, but she gets this idea of exploring the influence that drugs had on Impressionist art for a thesis. Dee is told about an old man who knew the Impressionist painters when they were still alive. He is living in near poverty, but he has masterpieces worth tens of thousands of dollars in the 1970s; in today’s money, those paintings would be worth millions.

There is something admirable about a guy who values the art even more than the money they are worth. (A point that is a theme for Ken Follett in this book.)

This man, poor in money but rich in culture, tells Dee about a Modigliani that was painted under the influence of drugs and taken back to Italy by a priest.

A lost Modigliani.

Dee is so excited about the prospect of finding a lost masterpiece that she needs to tell someone. But who? Who does she know who would understand how exciting this potential discovery is? Uncle Charles Lampeth, of course. The man for whom art is a commodity to be traded, sold, or stolen as if it were corn, wheat, or barley. She sends him a postcard and touches off a cavalcade of an Amazing Race version of who can find the painting first.

He wouldn’t do that to his niece would he? Whatever ethics he had been born with have long been extinguished from his brain as a guiding principle.

In the other part of the story Julian Black is smarting from a lack of funds. He is enraged by the lack of respect from his cuckolding, upper-class wife. He is also the owner of an art gallery on life support. Needless to say, Mr. Black is a very desperate man, indeed. When he learns about this lost Modigliani, he sees it as the last chance to get his life back on track.

Peter Usher is an up and coming artist who has been misled and cheated by art gallery owners, like Charles Lampeth. He also, unwittingly, has become mired in the Modigliani scandal, even as he puts in place a diabolical plan to get even with the corrupt players in the art gallery world.

Needless to say, we are heading for a cockup that will leave one “winner” and a string of resentful losers.

Ken Follett published this book in 1976 under the pseudonym Zachary Stone. On the surface, this novel is a fun romp across Europe, chasing a lost masterpiece by one of the greatest Italian artists, but in the murky waters beneath, Follett is making some much larger points about the people who make money out of culture, but don’t necessarily support it. There was one plot twist that ventures into the implausible that twisted me so hard I nearly broke my neck, but then I have seen enough improbabilities in real life to not be too critical of an author who maybe is getting too clever. If you like art and are looking for a quick, enjoyable read, this will fill your brush with paint.

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