The Lost Painting: The Quest For A Caravaggio Masterpiece Quotes
"A painting is like a window back into time, that with meticulous study he could peer into a work by Caravaggio and observe that moment, four hundred years ago, when the artist was in his studio."
"Sometimes, when you go looking for one thing, you find another. And every now and then, your reward for persisting is that the other is better."
"It was said by the painter Giovanni Baglione that Caravaggio had found his first lodgings in Rome with another painter known as Lorenzo the Sicilian, who had a shop full of crude works."
"He orders a bowl of wild strawberries for dessert. One of his guests asks about the day, many years ago, when he went in search of a missing Caravaggio."
"Around the table, the topic of conversation is an artist who lived four hundred years ago, named Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio."
"He thought of him living alone in his tiny apartment with unpacked boxes, thinking about his wife, who was living with another man."
"The Englishman has had a hand in the search for several other lost paintings by Caravaggio."
"It's the sort of place where everybody knows if you bought a new scarf, or how many lovers your mother had."
"He was ill-treated by Pucci, according to Mancini, made to do unpleasant work and given only greens to eat at every meal."
"By the time he climbed down the ladder he felt convinced that Caravaggio's hand had created this painting."
"He was Francesca’s thesis adviser—in name, at least."
"Later, when they passed each other in the hall and she smiled at him, his look told her that he could not quite place her."
"She rehearsed a brief account of the Recanati payments, took a few deep breaths, and dialed the number."
"Either the machine was full or it was broken."
"The price of a painting was often based on its size."
"The St. John owned by Ciriaco was the smallest of the three, and it depicted just a single figure."
"We need to go back. There are many other things to look at, but we wanted to show you what we’d found as soon as possible."
"This," he said slowly, "is a very important discovery. It puts everything about these years of Caravaggio into focus."
"In her anxiety, Francesca tended to talk, making comments about his collection of art."
"It was dusk in Rome. Overhead the swallows of spring circled and pirouetted high in the sky."
"Life in Ireland was akin to exile, in a land on the far periphery of the art world."
"The bureaucracy, the endless delays in getting paid, and the constant need to seek out work had finally defeated him."
"Very little of value turned up, but Benedetti enjoyed these mornings and the diversion they provided from his routine."
"He had felt that he was destined to achieve something important, to make himself known in the art world."
"To understand it better, we should take it back to the gallery for cleaning and restoration."
"I had hoped he might advance his career by publishing such a find in a prestigious art journal."
"He imagined Father Barber calling in another restorer, or an art historian, for a second opinion."
"If it is not by him, it is the best possible copy."
"The gallery did not have a vehicle of its own. Benedetti would have to lease the van of an art dealer with whom the gallery regularly did business."
"Benedetti’s mood shifted feverishly from elation to doubt to anxiety."
"At Mario’s on an evening in 1968, Benedetti met Denis Mahon."
"He reached out and touched the surface lightly with the pads of his fingers, feeling the texture of the paint."
"I think it should be relined first, before I can start cleaning."
"Benedetti had always paid him generously, often more than the sum they had agreed upon."
"He was a hunted man. Within the Papal State, his crime carried a bando capitale."
"The obvious step was for Kennedy to ask the Jesuits how they had gotten the painting."
"The thought of a lost Caravaggio in your own backyard—in Dublin, of all places—seemed wildly improbable."
"The painting was as good as he’d remembered."
"I had managed to get through that interview."
"He was, thought Francesca, the sort of man who, if you asked him, 'How are you today?' would say, 'Fine, fine. But don’t tell anybody.'"
"She was, as Luciano had predicted, all but unconscious with stage fright."
"She felt herself drawn into the drama of the scene, spellbound the way she’d been as a young girl seeing for the first time The Calling of St. Matthew in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi."
"Francesca felt offended. She had grown fond of the old Marchesa."
"Francesca couldn’t put her finger on a precise comment or any factual error that Benedetti had made, but some of his remarks gave her the impression that he lacked something basic, a broader context, perhaps, of art history."
"Perhaps he was just reacting to her youth, she thought. Or perhaps it was a sign of his own insecurity."
"In Sicily he was described by those who met him as 'deranged' and 'mad.' He lived in constant fear, sleeping fully dressed with a dagger always by his side."
"He had plenty of money and was famous, but he still lived under the bando capitale, the sentence of death. He was a hunted man with a bounty on his head."
"He knew the paintings well and had a dossier on each. He worked on weekends and late into the night."
"It was, Francesca remarked to Luciano, like being in the Piazza Navona on a Saturday night."
"He had refused, for example, to invite Maurizio Calvesi to the conference. He had taken offense when the professor had written in a journal that Benedetti had found the painting because of the archival work of Francesca and Laura Testa."
"In those days, Ireland had been part of the British empire, and no export license had been required to move goods out of Scotland."
"That left only a short time to assemble a show, to write an exhibition catalogue, and to prepare and hang the paintings."
"Francesca wore a white dress and veil. The wedding, ceremonial and formal, was, Francesca later said, 'the mistake of the mistake.'"
"But the one he had was good enough. Much better, in fact, than for most masterpieces."
"He couldn’t move it upstairs to the studio, where he could study it closely, under the same conditions and lighting as the Taking."
"Protective glass, bulletproof, said a British worker."