The Body in Bodega Bay by Betsy Draine Read Free Book Online Page A

treatment, early modern period. Might be worth something to a believer but not much to a collector. Eight hundred dollars? Fair enough. Disappointed?” He raised his eyebrows.
    â€œI don’t know if I am or not,” said Toby. “We’re trying to figure out if it could have been a motive for murder.”
    â€œBut wait. That’s just what the front tells us, and it’s not the front that interests me.” Al picked up the photo of the back of the panel. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, he continued: “Do you see these horizontal bands of wood attached to the back? They’re supports to keep the panel from warping. The way they were made and the way they’re attached, as well as the patina of the wood, tell me that this panel is much older than the painting. How much older I can’t say. I might be able to tell if I had the actual panel. But I already know that this image of Michael might be covering something else, and if so, the question is, what? There’s no way of telling from a photograph.”
    â€œYou mean there might be another painting underneath this one?” asked Toby.
    â€œIt’s possible,” Al replied. “In fact it’s even likely that there are traces of an older painting underneath. But I can’t say anything about its age or condition or quality without examining the physical work.”
    â€œBut isn’t it possible,” I asked, “that the maker of this icon found an old panel to work on and that’s all we’re looking at, a recent painting on an older support?”
    â€œOf course there’s a chance of that. But icons in Russia were never regarded as mere works of art. They were objects of devotion. No one ever discarded an old icon just because it had been discolored or damaged. They were conserved and used over and over again by the next generation of artists because the panels themselves were considered sacred.” Al finished the last few sips of his tea.
    â€œYou see,” he continued, “when a painting was no longer legible, another artist would paint over it, sometimes just to bring out the original by highlighting the lines and refreshing the colors, restoring what was in danger of being lost. Yet sometimes the old painting was too far gone, and when that was the case, the artist would start over again on top of the old, maybe even with a new composition.”
    â€œHow often would that happen?” asked Toby.
    â€œAll the time. The drying oil used by the old masters to fix and intensify their colors naturally darkened over the years. And if the icons were hung in churches, which most of them were, the soot from votive candles and incense was absorbed by the varnish, which only made matters worse. After eighty or a hundred years, the original painted surface became impenetrable.”
    â€œYou mean, the image would completely disappear?” asked Toby.
    â€œThat’s right. Today we know how to clean the panels to restore their original luster, but in times past the only solution was to repaint the original icon or to paint over it on a new background. That’s why some masterpieces of earlier centuries have come down to us in the form of weak copies of the originals.”
    Toby edged forward on the couch. “So underneath the angel there could be a painting that’s centuries older.”
    â€œAs I said, possibly, but even if that’s so, what might be left of it can’t be determined without testing.”
    â€œBut if somebody had a suspicion there was a more valuable painting hidden under the angel, that could be a reason to steal it.”
    â€œPerhaps so. Let me show you what I’ve been talking about. I’ve prepared a little demonstration for you.” Al got up and led us toward the back of the house, where he had set up his study and workshop, talking as we walked. “I’ve been examining an icon for the Berkeley Art Museum. It was