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

donated by an alumnus. They’ve asked me to value it and, in response to my suggestion, to clean it, which, as you’ll see, it badly needs. I’ve done some preliminary tests, and now I’m ready for the next step. Unless I miss my guess, you’re in for a surprise.”
    On a workbench in the studio, cushioned by a towel, a rectangular icon rested on its back. The central area of the panel was recessed. The board, including the frame, was carved in one piece. The icon may have been a foot long and almost as wide. At first glance, the central area appeared to be completely black, as if the surface had been expunged. However, when Al held it up at a slant under raking light, I could dimly perceive the outlines of a familiar subject, a three-quarter length portrait of the Virgin and Child.
    â€œThe Mother of God of Vladimir,” Al announced. The name, he explained, came from the city in which the original was painted in the twelfth century. The icon was said to produce miracles, and so the subject and its treatment were copied again and again on the same panel over the years, down to the present day.
    â€œAlthough sometimes,” Al remarked, “these so-called wonder-working icons backfired.”
    â€œHow so?” I asked.
    â€œTake the Virgin of Vavarsky Gate, which was a famous wonder-working icon in Moscow. When a plague hit the city during the reign of Catherine the Great, crowds of sick people flocked around the icon to pray for relief. What happened was they just spread the infection. Poor bastards died by the thousands.” He shook his head in bemused disapproval.
    â€œYou can’t blame that on the icon,” I pointed out.
    â€œI blame it on wishful thinking and superstition.” He raised an eyebrow. “Anyhow, as to this one,” he said as he redirected our attention to the panel, “it’s an indifferent version of the Vladimir icon, maybe mid-nineteenth century. But let’s look at the reverse.” He turned it over gently in his hands and pointed to the narrow strips of wood spanning the back and held in position by wooden pegs. “You see these? Before the fourteenth century, the support slats were fastened with pegs like this, and occasionally also reinforced by two additional slats set into the top and bottom outside edge of the panel.” He pointed out the vertical slats. “The practice was revived in the eighteenth century, and that’s what I think we have here.”
    The back of Charlie’s icon looked different in the photo, and I said so.
    â€œThat’s right. The carpentry there is typical of the practice dating from the fifteenth century through the end of the seventeenth, when grooves were scraped into the panel and horizontal wedges were forced into them with a hammer.”
    â€œSo is that how old you think Charlie’s icon might be?” asked Toby.
    â€œQuite possibly. Sometimes it’s not easy to tell. In the nineteenth century they returned to the wedge-in-groove method, which is why panels made in the eighteenth century tend to stand apart. That’s my clue as to this one’s age.”
    â€œAnd this coating on the surface was caused by the varnish they used?”
    â€œYes. Now watch what happens when I apply the lightest dab of sunflower-seed oil.” There was a bowl filled with clear oil sitting on the table alongside another bowl containing a darker, thicker liquid, and a row of small instruments lined up waiting to be used: a pair of scissors, tweezers, wads of cotton wool, and a thin scalpel. Al soaked a ball of cotton in the clear oil and very delicately swabbed the icon, using even, vertical strokes from top to bottom and bottom to top. He replaced the cotton ball several times during this operation. As soon as he had finished, I could see the figures in much clearer outline, as though I were looking through a transparent tinted glass.
    â€œNow for the next step.” Al used