My Six-Year-Old Daughter Knocked the Tea From My Hand and Pointed at My Wife—Then the Spill Started Foaming on the Marble
/
Chapter 11 / 27
Chapter 11 - The First Replica
The painting was supposed to be a 1962 work by an American expressionist.
Insured value:
$4.8 million.
The object hanging in my house was not the original.
It was a sophisticated reproduction.
Not something printed at a shopping mall.
Pigments chosen carefully.
Artificial aging.
Correct dimensions.
Frame reused from the original.
Good enough to fool a casual viewer.
Not a conservator with instruments and reference files.
I sat down.
“Where’s the original?”
Nobody knew.
Then another painting was tested.
Replica.
A small bronze sculpture.
Also suspect.
My house had been robbed while I was still living in it.
May you like
Repeatedly.
And I had thanked my wife for managing the insurance paperwork.
