44 Scotland Street: French intimisme

Elspeth leaned over his shoulder to get a better view of he painting. As she did so, the beam of the torch moved, to fall on the painting behind the one they were examining. Only a small part of it was visible, but it enough to elicit a gasp from Matthew.

“Fergusson,” he said.

“Let’s take into the drawing room,” said Elspeth. “We can’t really see them in here.”

Matthew picked up the first of the paintings and carried it gingerly back past the now detached bookcase. He returned for the other three, coughing from the dust that had settled on the frames in spite of the covering cloth.

“These have must been here for ages,” he said, as he laid the final painting down against a sofa. “Years and years.”

Elspeth joined him, brushing the dust off her hands. “I’ll fetch the vacuum cleaner,” she said. “I don’t want the boys to be exposed all this dust.” Tobermory, she suspected, had a slight tendency to asthma and she did not want him to start one of his sneezing attacks.

While Elspeth was out of the room, Matthew bent down to examine the Cowie. It was a finely-worked watercolour, the subject being what appeared to be an artist’s studio. Two girls and a boy, young enough still to be in their teens, were perched on high stools while before them was an easel holding a drawing block. One of the girls was staring directly out of the picture, her face passive but somehow expectant. The other girl and the boy were gazing out of the window, their attention held by something beyond the scope of the painting.

Elspeth returned with the vacuum cleaner.

“Their clothes,” said Matthew. “Look at their clothes.”

“Nineteenth thirties? Forties?”

“Yes,” said Matthew. “The children in Cowie’s paintings all wear the same things – the girls wear a sort of tunic – you see it there – the boys have these long shorts. Schoolchildren of the time were dressed like that.”

“And the faces,” mused Elspeth.

Matthew nodded. “Yes. Innocent, weren’t they?”

“Unlike modern teenagers?”

Matthew smiled. “Modern teenagers look more knowing.”

“And jaded?”

“Much more. They’ve seen it all, haven’t they? On the web.”

He took out a handkerchief and rubbed it across the face of the glass. “Cowie taught up at Hospitalfield,” he said. “You know that place up in Angus. We went there for jazz evening with Alan Steadman.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“This was probably painted up in Aberdeen, though. These are schoolchildren.”

“And the other paintings?”

Matthew took a deep breath. He had already looked at the Fergusson, and he was sure of that. But there were two more, both glazed and shrouded in dust. “We should use the vacuum on those two,” he said. “The dust’s really thick. I’ll do it.”

He plugged in the cleaner and placed the head up against the glass of one of the paintings. As the machine whined into life, the dust flew off the surface; there was a glint of silver from where the glass now reflected the light. Pushing the vacuum head backwards and forwards the dust was soon removed. He turned to the other.

Elspeth watched him with anticipation. “And?” she said.

Matthew switched off the vacuum cleaner and crouched down in front of the two paintings. “Both are oil on canvas,” he said. “I’m glad that whoever had these had the good sense to put them behind the glass. Otherwise all that dust would have been on the surface itself.”

“And?” prompted Elspeth.

“I have no idea what this one is,” he said, pointing to the larger of the two. He put on his art-dealer’s voice. “An unremarkable nineteenth century genre painting, probably. Highland cattle? Yes, there they are. A stag? Yes, in the background.”

He moved to the next. She watched him. It fascinated her to see Matthew reacting to a painting; she had seen him doing this before. You could almost see the thought process, the elimination of possibilities, the reaction to some deep, inbuilt feeling for what was before him.

She did not want to rush him, but she was excited. If the others were a Cowie and a Fergusson, then this was not just a collection of odd bits and pieces.

Fergusson was one of the most highly-prized of the Scottish Colourists, and Cowie, although less widely-appreciated, was interesting.

“Anything?” she asked.

Matthew said nothing. Now he reached forward and lifted up the painting, holding it at such an angle that the light fell more directly on it.

“This isn’t Scottish,” he said.

She saw that the picture was of a kitchen scene. A woman stood at a cooking range with her back to the artist; above the range, a line of copper saucepans was hanging; a rabbit, trussed for the larder, had been tossed onto a pine table to woman’s right, its fate the pot. The painting had a richness to it; reds predominated, with orange and copper in support. There was a warmth to the painting that emanated from the range with its visible glowing heart and its steaming pan.

“That’s a French kitchen,” said Elspeth. She was not sure why she said this; she simply knew.

Matthew agreed. “You know what this is,” he said quietly. “Not only is it French, but it’s …” He turned to face Elspeth. “Edouard Vuillard.”

Elspeth’s knowledge of art history was sketchy, but she had picked up the outlines.

“Bonnard and Vuillard. That Vuillard?”

Matthew’s face broke into a smile. “Yes, that Vuillard. One of the French intimistes.”

She reached out to touch the painting. It was as if she wanted to satisfy herself that it was real.

“Obviously I’ll have to ask Belinda,” said Matthew.

“Belinda?”

“Belinda Thomson. She’s the Vuillard expert and she lives in Edinburgh. She’s the person who authenticated that Vuillard café scene last year.”

“And if it is?” asked Elspeth.

“If Belinda says it’s a Vuillard, “ said Matthew. “Then it’s a Vuillard. It looks like it to me.”

Elspeth sat down on the sofa. “Matthew,” she said. “If that’s a Vuillard and the other two are a Fergusson and a Cowie, then we’ve …”

“Discovered rather an important haul,” said Matthew.

Elspeth opened her hands in a gesture of puzzlement. “But who owns them?”

Matthew frowned. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“But you’ll have to think of it,” said Elspeth. “These paintings are valuable, aren’t they?”

“Very.”

“Just how much is very?”

“The Vuillard is the most valuable, I’d say. One hundred and twenty thousand. One hundred and fifty. Something like that. The Fergusson would be a bit less. The Cowie, about twenty.”

“So all in all, a quarter of a million.”

Matthew nodded.

“A quarter of a million in our concealed room,” said Elspeth. “How many concealed rooms have something quite as valuable as that in them?”

Matthew seemed puzzled. “But you think it might not be ours?” he asked. “How come?”