instinct, you mean?" she asked, her voice light, her dark blue eyes serious.
O'Donnel grinned, understanding instantly what Lindsay was saying. He, too, used instinct in his work. Every good cop did, reflexively dividing the people he met into categories of honest and crooked and in between. "Yeah, that's what I mean."
Lindsay gestured again toward the kuang that was a seven-hundred-year-old forgery. "The Chinese of the Sung dynasty valued inscriptions. The Shang did not. Therefore, when Sung forgers went to work, they made pieces that appealed to the fashions of Sung times. They added inscriptions."
"So it boils down to inscriptions again," said O'Donnel, gesturing toward the bowl.
Lindsay smiled ruefully. "I wish it were that simple. Art inevitably reflects the tastes of the artist's time. Even forged art. Have you ever seen a comparison of Old Masters forged through the ages?"
O'Donnel's blue eyes narrowed intently, but he said nothing, knowing that the question was rhetorical. She no more expected him to be an expert on Old Masters than he expected her to be expert in FBI procedures. He, at least, was correct in his expectations. Before coming to the counterintelligence division, O'Donnel had worked art fraud. He knew a great deal about Old Masters.
"In the times when epic art was in fashion," continued Lindsay, "forgers subtly altered the feel of the Old Masters they imitated until the proportions were more epic, and therefore more pleasing to potential customers. Today, the forgers tend to simplify some of the old paintings that are, to our present tastes, overwrought. If baroque comes back in vogue, the Old Masters will be recast yet again in subtly baroque form and sold to collectors who can't believe that new Old Masters don't turn up in grandma's attic every day."
"I didn't think forgers were that smart," said O'Donnel. "Changing old paintings to please modern tastes. Very clever."
"It's not cleverness," Lindsay said. "It's simply that no matter how hard you try, you can't escape the subtle, pervasive influence of the culture and time you were born into. Forgers paint a subtly modernized version of an Old Master not because they sense that it will be easier to sell, but because they can't help it."
With a graceful motion Lindsay turned back to the table. "That's how I knew that bronzes number twelve and fifteen were frauds. The forgers used the correct designs for the times they were imitating, but they used the symbols themselves incorrectly. For their decorations, Shang bronzes have symbols that make very clear statements about the relationship of man and the universe according to Shang precepts. Sung forgeries of Shang ritual vessels copied aspects of the Shang design quite accurately, but they garbled the underlying philosophical statements every time." She shrugged. "Not surprising. The forgers usually were illiterate peasants. To them, the symbols were simply flourishes to catch the eye, decorations empty of meaning."
O'Donnel looked at the bronzes as though memorizing them before he turned back to Lindsay. "Want to go over them again?"
She shook her head. "I would like to study the last one more closely, though. Could you lend it to the Museum of the Asias? Or at least allow us to photograph it for our own education, perhaps even do an article on it? Ideally, we would like to purchase the bowl, of course. And the hill-censer, too," she added, gesturing toward the incense burner inlaid in gold. "If the owner wants to sell, my museum wants to be among the bidders."
O'Donnel smiled and held his hands out, palm up. "I'll pass it along, but it's really not my department. For all I know, the boss cooked up these bronzes at the local foundry."
There was a distinctly cynical edge to Lindsay's answering smile. She knew that while O'Donnel probably wasn't lying outright, he wasn't telling much of the truth, either. He certainly wasn't telling her what she wanted to know who owned the bronzes she had just
O'Donnel grinned, understanding instantly what Lindsay was saying. He, too, used instinct in his work. Every good cop did, reflexively dividing the people he met into categories of honest and crooked and in between. "Yeah, that's what I mean."
Lindsay gestured again toward the kuang that was a seven-hundred-year-old forgery. "The Chinese of the Sung dynasty valued inscriptions. The Shang did not. Therefore, when Sung forgers went to work, they made pieces that appealed to the fashions of Sung times. They added inscriptions."
"So it boils down to inscriptions again," said O'Donnel, gesturing toward the bowl.
Lindsay smiled ruefully. "I wish it were that simple. Art inevitably reflects the tastes of the artist's time. Even forged art. Have you ever seen a comparison of Old Masters forged through the ages?"
O'Donnel's blue eyes narrowed intently, but he said nothing, knowing that the question was rhetorical. She no more expected him to be an expert on Old Masters than he expected her to be expert in FBI procedures. He, at least, was correct in his expectations. Before coming to the counterintelligence division, O'Donnel had worked art fraud. He knew a great deal about Old Masters.
"In the times when epic art was in fashion," continued Lindsay, "forgers subtly altered the feel of the Old Masters they imitated until the proportions were more epic, and therefore more pleasing to potential customers. Today, the forgers tend to simplify some of the old paintings that are, to our present tastes, overwrought. If baroque comes back in vogue, the Old Masters will be recast yet again in subtly baroque form and sold to collectors who can't believe that new Old Masters don't turn up in grandma's attic every day."
"I didn't think forgers were that smart," said O'Donnel. "Changing old paintings to please modern tastes. Very clever."
"It's not cleverness," Lindsay said. "It's simply that no matter how hard you try, you can't escape the subtle, pervasive influence of the culture and time you were born into. Forgers paint a subtly modernized version of an Old Master not because they sense that it will be easier to sell, but because they can't help it."
With a graceful motion Lindsay turned back to the table. "That's how I knew that bronzes number twelve and fifteen were frauds. The forgers used the correct designs for the times they were imitating, but they used the symbols themselves incorrectly. For their decorations, Shang bronzes have symbols that make very clear statements about the relationship of man and the universe according to Shang precepts. Sung forgeries of Shang ritual vessels copied aspects of the Shang design quite accurately, but they garbled the underlying philosophical statements every time." She shrugged. "Not surprising. The forgers usually were illiterate peasants. To them, the symbols were simply flourishes to catch the eye, decorations empty of meaning."
O'Donnel looked at the bronzes as though memorizing them before he turned back to Lindsay. "Want to go over them again?"
She shook her head. "I would like to study the last one more closely, though. Could you lend it to the Museum of the Asias? Or at least allow us to photograph it for our own education, perhaps even do an article on it? Ideally, we would like to purchase the bowl, of course. And the hill-censer, too," she added, gesturing toward the incense burner inlaid in gold. "If the owner wants to sell, my museum wants to be among the bidders."
O'Donnel smiled and held his hands out, palm up. "I'll pass it along, but it's really not my department. For all I know, the boss cooked up these bronzes at the local foundry."
There was a distinctly cynical edge to Lindsay's answering smile. She knew that while O'Donnel probably wasn't lying outright, he wasn't telling much of the truth, either. He certainly wasn't telling her what she wanted to know who owned the bronzes she had just
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