STORIES FROM MEMBERS 

Smear Tactics
By Harmer Johnson, AAA

When I started working at Sotheby's in London my eighteen-year-old brain was little used or challenged, old enough to know how to shave, but socially naïve and staggeringly ignorant about the sophisticated world of fine art.

At the beginning of the second month, on a drizzling Monday morning and employed as a porter responsible for dusting, pushing, heaving and wrapping in the poorly lit bowels below the hallowed galleries above, I came of age. Not with one of the well-bred secretaries whose only targets were members of the Queen's Household Cavalry, but nonetheless in memorable fashion and assuredly setting me on the course I chart today.

The basement, a chaotic warren that descended below Bond Street and had served as a morgue during the Blitz, was my life for eight hours each day, six days a week. Art and antiques were propped, balanced, hung on walls, and stuffed into dusty nooks and crannies. Old master paintings awash with glowering figures and threatening biblical scenes competed for space with ormolu-mounted French furniture, suits of armor, and massive Chinese Fu Dogs.

I slaved in the cellars with another porter, a recent recruit similarly employed and, like me, with a scant sense of personal identity. For the sake of this tale, I am calling him "Julian". This is for two reasons: firstly, to protect the innocent; secondly, because that is his name.

Bruce Chatwin, head of the painting department at age twenty-one, galloped around the corner, a frame grasped in each hand. Always on the move, with mind and body soaking up everything within striking distance, he was theatrical, exhausting, demanding, and perfectly created to shortly leave the auction world, pursue nomadic travel, and write.

 "This picture is in next month's sale. It's bloody ugly in the current frame. Take it out and stick it in the other one. Here's the catalogue".

The frames lay before us, one naked and awaiting a new resident, the other embracing a scene of ballet dancers on a stage, executed in gentle shades of blue, orange and yellow. The subject seemed familiar even to my untrained eyes. I peered at the open page:  Lot 17, "Les Danseuses", Edgar Degas, pastel, circa 1879. The name rang a bell, and now after only a few weeks of working in our subterranean world we were imprudently entrusted with shoving one of his works under glass.

We were left a hammer and six small nails, presumably sufficient technology with which to reframe a masterpiece. Old nails were swiftly removed, but the picture and aged board that served as backing remained steadfastly attached to the frame. There was only one way to handle this. Julian and I pulled and yanked until wood, glass, and picture came separately tumbling into our hands. The dancers slipped to one side, and in order to prevent the image from disappearing onto the filthy cement floor I grabbed the work with both hands. My left was at one edge, with the right thumb and forefinger tenaciously affixed to the other where a figure lurked in the wings. We had miraculously saved the work for posterity.

It must be pointed out that neither Julian nor I knew the meaning of "pastel", one of the most fugitive techniques known to mice and men, and it was a while before the results of our action became abundantly clear. My two fingers had somehow slipped southwards across the surface, dragging a small column of dark pigment between the thighs of a dancer waiting to enter. In stunned silence we stared at her. She now had three legs and was incapable of performing anything except perhaps a pas de trois with her newly acquired pogo stick. A first for the Paris Corps de Ballet.

We were done for, as I sank with hands clasped to head and Julian made pathetic mewing sounds. What to do? Confess? If so, what would become of us? As we pondered the options and probabilities, the terror of the situation had the surprising effect of stimulating analytical reasoning which slowly made its way through the bile in our throats. Admit to the deed, and we will be killed or fired on the spot. Say nothing, the disaster is discovered and an identical fate awaits. Say nothing, get away with it and we keep our jobs. By a process of elimination, Number Three was highly attractive and there might even be a slim chance we would escape the noose.

Some restoration was required. Make the third leg disappear by rubbing it again? We studied the scene, mulling over the best technique to employ. I voted for more finger work, while Julian was adamant in going with his handkerchief. I felt that another leg could convince viewers it was a chair or small settee, though Julian favored a gentle circular motion creating the impression of dusky shadows. After all, this was impressionism. I graciously told him he could have the first go at it, but that if an even greater disaster was in the making I would insist on completing the conservation. We saw that the work was illustrated in the sale catalogue, but fortunately not with clarity around the borders. Julian's plan seemed the best bet.

I found myself grudgingly impressed by his method, with coat and tie removed, whistling "Blue Suede Shoes", and waving the handkerchief as he darted backwards and forwards considering the next move. The illogical limb was gently obliterated, and the area by the theatre curtain became a billowing clump of nothing in particular. Julian said it represented heavy cigar smoke exuded by patrons in the front row. I was not called upon to add my unique touches, a fact that disappoints me even now. It was Julian who worked with the master, while I could only admire his work, those deft and competent hands, and Elvis.

Our crime against Western Civilization was never discovered, and the picture was included in the auction. However, it failed to fetch its reserve price, a possibility we had never considered. What would the consignor say when it was back on the wall and she spied that one of her dancers was missing? The catalogue described the owner as, "A Titled Lady", an elderly Irish widow living in Belgrave Square where I was instructed to deliver and re-hang the work over a dark rectangular patch it had lived on for thirty-five years.     

God does indeed work in mysterious ways. Not only did Julian and I dodge the bullet in the basement, the Lady never saw the problem. She was in her mid nineties, legally blind, and thrilled that we had provided a new frame. Her eyes could not begin to make out the Degas, but delicate, aristocratic fingers lovingly explored the finely carved swags and foliage in the woodwork. She was delighted at getting the picture back, and assured me how deeply it had been missed. The words were still calling out to me long after I left her drawing room, jumped on the bus, and headed out of town.

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