sale?”
“Certainly.” The secretary asked her name, then buzzed upstairs. “You can go on up to the third floor.” And she pointed to an elevator just big enough for two.
She was greeted by Stuart Feld, the powerhouse American dealer with a critical eye for pictures that could make a boastful collector wither. Feld not only sold nineteenth-century pictures, he
felt
nineteenth century. He looked perfectly suited—his suit was perfect—for sitting in his favored neoclassical American furniture. She pulled the photo from her purse. Feld held it up to a light box.
“How big is it?” he asked.
“Eight by twelve inches,” she said.
Silence was his response until, “Where is it?” he asked.
Lacey’s first real dealing in the art world incorporated tiny lies into its construct. “It’s at another dealer’s, but he’s deliberating. The owner is looking for the money now.” It was the perfect response. There was enough truth in the statement for it to be convincing, and it inadvertently sparked Feld’s competitive spirit.
“We don’t make offers,” said Feld. “Tell us what you want.”
Lacey calculated the asking price on Feld’s Peto, discounting it appropriately.
“Forty thousand,” she said.
“That’s a bit rich, but perhaps, providing it’s in good shape,” he said.
Lacey went around the corner to Ken Lux but could only get himdown to thirty-three thousand. Still, seven thousand dollars was not bad for a walk around the corner. Ken was a dealer who began in the 1960s, when pictures were hard to sell and were easily let out of the gallery to hang in a collector’s house for a few days’ trial or even shipped out of state with only a promise by phone to secure the painting. The deals were conducted on handshakes alone and often without even that. It wasn’t until the prices started jumping in the mid-1980s—and a few dealers went to jail for selling the same picture twice—that paperwork became necessary. Ken knew Lacey well enough from the floor at Sotheby’s, and relying on old-fashioned instinct, he let the picture out of the gallery with just a one-page contract and a promise to pay in two weeks. (Once he had put a painting out for approval to a motorcycle gang, who for some reason wanted a picture of bears frolicking in human clothes. He got paid the next day, in cash pulled in wads from the gang’s pockets.)
With the picture under her arm, she rounded the corner once again to H & A, got a check, and pocketed seven grand. Lacey hadn’t really lied, she had only been crafty, but she had tasted honey in the art market, and she momentarily felt smarter than Stuart Feld, Ken Lux, and the rest of the dealers who were burrowed in the brownstones stippling Madison Avenue.
13.
THE NATHANSONS had called Sotheby’s—yes, they had bought the Avery. Could it be delivered to D.C. today? It would be an object of conversation at their dressy dinner party tonight. Was there a walker who could escort the picture and deliver it? It’s only a four-hour train ride. Sometimes the lowliest employees get the best jobs, and Lacey was on a train by ten a.m., with the Avery wrapped in cardboard, bound with a splintery sisal string affixed to a wooden handle, and fully insured. This seemed like a snow day to Lacey, although there was no snow in sight for six months.
The wide train windows looked onto verdant pastures, soot-smudged buildings, and shuttered storefronts like a rapidly unscrolling panorama as the train whizzed past them. Her wrinkle-proof dress clung statically to her legs, and each move of her arm pulled it this way or that above a knee, which was noted by a slouching youth facing backward and adjacent to her.
Lacey had picked D.C. highlights from her mental guidebook of sights to see. The National Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum had moved up the wish list every time they were cited in illustrations as being the home of her favorite paintings. All she had to do was crib some time
“Certainly.” The secretary asked her name, then buzzed upstairs. “You can go on up to the third floor.” And she pointed to an elevator just big enough for two.
She was greeted by Stuart Feld, the powerhouse American dealer with a critical eye for pictures that could make a boastful collector wither. Feld not only sold nineteenth-century pictures, he
felt
nineteenth century. He looked perfectly suited—his suit was perfect—for sitting in his favored neoclassical American furniture. She pulled the photo from her purse. Feld held it up to a light box.
“How big is it?” he asked.
“Eight by twelve inches,” she said.
Silence was his response until, “Where is it?” he asked.
Lacey’s first real dealing in the art world incorporated tiny lies into its construct. “It’s at another dealer’s, but he’s deliberating. The owner is looking for the money now.” It was the perfect response. There was enough truth in the statement for it to be convincing, and it inadvertently sparked Feld’s competitive spirit.
“We don’t make offers,” said Feld. “Tell us what you want.”
Lacey calculated the asking price on Feld’s Peto, discounting it appropriately.
“Forty thousand,” she said.
“That’s a bit rich, but perhaps, providing it’s in good shape,” he said.
Lacey went around the corner to Ken Lux but could only get himdown to thirty-three thousand. Still, seven thousand dollars was not bad for a walk around the corner. Ken was a dealer who began in the 1960s, when pictures were hard to sell and were easily let out of the gallery to hang in a collector’s house for a few days’ trial or even shipped out of state with only a promise by phone to secure the painting. The deals were conducted on handshakes alone and often without even that. It wasn’t until the prices started jumping in the mid-1980s—and a few dealers went to jail for selling the same picture twice—that paperwork became necessary. Ken knew Lacey well enough from the floor at Sotheby’s, and relying on old-fashioned instinct, he let the picture out of the gallery with just a one-page contract and a promise to pay in two weeks. (Once he had put a painting out for approval to a motorcycle gang, who for some reason wanted a picture of bears frolicking in human clothes. He got paid the next day, in cash pulled in wads from the gang’s pockets.)
With the picture under her arm, she rounded the corner once again to H & A, got a check, and pocketed seven grand. Lacey hadn’t really lied, she had only been crafty, but she had tasted honey in the art market, and she momentarily felt smarter than Stuart Feld, Ken Lux, and the rest of the dealers who were burrowed in the brownstones stippling Madison Avenue.
13.
THE NATHANSONS had called Sotheby’s—yes, they had bought the Avery. Could it be delivered to D.C. today? It would be an object of conversation at their dressy dinner party tonight. Was there a walker who could escort the picture and deliver it? It’s only a four-hour train ride. Sometimes the lowliest employees get the best jobs, and Lacey was on a train by ten a.m., with the Avery wrapped in cardboard, bound with a splintery sisal string affixed to a wooden handle, and fully insured. This seemed like a snow day to Lacey, although there was no snow in sight for six months.
The wide train windows looked onto verdant pastures, soot-smudged buildings, and shuttered storefronts like a rapidly unscrolling panorama as the train whizzed past them. Her wrinkle-proof dress clung statically to her legs, and each move of her arm pulled it this way or that above a knee, which was noted by a slouching youth facing backward and adjacent to her.
Lacey had picked D.C. highlights from her mental guidebook of sights to see. The National Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum had moved up the wish list every time they were cited in illustrations as being the home of her favorite paintings. All she had to do was crib some time
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