Chagall and Prints Charming
An excerpt from We First Met in Ithaca or Was It Eden
Chagall
Elle propped her feet on the coffee table and leaned back, with her arms behind her head. She had a story she was itching to tell. It had occurred to her overnight, when light from passing cars penetrated the flimsy shades at the B&B and flashed across a picture on the wall at the foot of the bed.
“When I arrived in town yesterday morning,” she began, “there was no vacancy at the Super 8 or at the only B&B listed online. I was exhausted from my all-night drive. I pleaded with the B&B owner and offered to pay double his usual price. He let me use his bedroom. He slept on the living-room sofa.
“There was a picture on the wall. It showed a man and a woman. Black and white. Probably wash on paper. Signed Marc Chagall, 1956. I’d never seen that image before. I love Chagall’s work, and this was good, very good. Prints of most Chagalls are up for sale on the Internet. I wanted to buy a copy of this one for myself and maybe more as gifts for friends. I googled Chagall, clicked images, and got hundreds of results. A vaguely similar picture, The Lovers, had been used on a book cover. But this image was far better. Why wasn’t anyone selling prints of it? That made no sense. It would be an obvious money-maker. Unless this wasn’t a print. Unless, miracle of miracles, this was an original. An original Chagall would be worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions. No one would hang an original masterpiece in his bedroom.
“In the picture, the woman was shown from the front with exposed breasts. She was looking at the man. The line of her nose continued as his profile. He was looking at her breasts. His face resembled a Greek mask. He had a horn on the top of his head. Leaves and berries grew from his ears. I would call it Masked Faun and Virgin.
“I questioned the B&B owner, Bob Treat. He told me he’d bought it in a secondhand shop in the south of France in 1975. I needed to know more. I invited him to dinner at a French restaurant I’d noticed on my way into town. I ordered a bottle of Merlot and refilled his glass several times. Finally, he opened up to me.
“‘I was twenty-two.’ he said. ‘I had just graduated from college. The Vietnam War had just ended. I had no plans. I didn’t need to do anything or be anywhere. I was dizzy from the decompression of suddenly having no stress. I was drifting aimlessly, spending my hard-saved earnings from summers past.
“‘I don’t remember the name of the town, but the sun that day was unforgettably bright. Everything was sharp and clear, distinct from its background. Everything was separate. Nothing was connected. I could only look at one thing at a time without squinting and blinking. And I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this painting on display outside a secondhand shop near the harbor. The brush strokes seemed to jump off the paper. The figures in the picture were beside me, around me. I became part of the picture!
“‘Then, as if a strobe light had flashed or a window had opened to another reality, I saw the woman in the picture, standing beside me, looking at it and at me.
“‘With the sun behind her, at first, I saw her in outline, very much as she appeared in the picture.
“‘I dropped my bag of fruit. Apples, pears, red grapes scattered on the sidewalk. I kneeled to pick them up, but they eluded my hands. My eyes were blinded by the sun or by her long shapely legs. From that angle, colors came into focus. She was wearing black short-shorts and a yellow halter top. The yellow drew attention to the breasts that were bare in the picture.
“‘She bent down with the flexibility of a ballerina and helped collect the fallen fruit.
“‘When I stood, I stared at her, then at the picture, then at her.
“‘That must be you, I said. But it can’t be.
“‘And why not? she asked with an educated English accent.
“‘The signature has the date — 1956. That might be the year you were born.
“‘The signature and the date are forgeries, she teased. My Italian boyfriend painted that last month. He’s done many like it. A few quick strokes of his brush.
“‘But both the style and the signature say Chagall.”
“‘She took an apple from my bag and bit into it. Then she said, Imagine the picture came first. Chagall, in painting it, brought me into existence, nearly 20 years ago. I was 19 then, and I haven’t aged a day since.
“‘We both laughed.
“‘Coffee? I asked.
“‘Tea, she replied. And macaroons, at the patisserie on the corner.
“‘We talked for hours, or rather I talked. I was determined to amuse and impress her. So, I talked endlessly, delighted that she was showing so much interest in me.
“‘After dark, when the patisserie was closing, I realized that I didn’t know her name. When I asked, she wouldn’t tell me. And she didn’t want to go to another place. And she wouldn’t agree to meet me the next day or ever again. I was disoriented. We had seemed to click. I had never felt so close to anyone. But I had misread her. I had missed my chance, if I ever had one.
“‘Seeing my disappointment, she took my hand and squeezed it. Then she leaned across the table until our noses almost touched. Her look was playful. She whispered. This is like a Japanese watercolor that captures the moment before cherry blossoms fall. Imagine we’re friends. No, we’ve known one another since childhood but haven’t seen one another for years. Don’t say another word. We’ll part now, but we’ll meet again, by chance, if not in this life, then in the next. Buy that picture and remember me by it.
“‘Is that you in the picture? I asked her. Really you? Or is that a Chagall that looks like you, maybe even an original?
“‘Believe that it’s me and believe it’s an original, as well. Both can’t be true at the same time, not in this world. But is this the only world? Hang it in your bedroom so you’ll see it every night and every morning, and I’ll be mixed with your dreams. I give you the gift of not knowing.’”
Elle continued, “I asked Bob Treat, the B&B owner, if it’s a print or an original. I pointed out that if it’s an original, it’s worth a fortune. He wasn’t surprised and didn’t want to know. He said that he hadn’t had it evaluated and never would. ‘Not knowing is worth far more to me,’ he said.”
Oz stood and stretched, still holding her hand. He looked into the foggy light and told her, “Good. That’s very good. And you improvised it quickly. You almost made me believe it was true. But, earlier, you told me that you arrived in town late last night, not the morning before. And I’m staying at the only B&B in town, and the owner’s name is Jenkins, not Treat, and he had three vacancies last night. You made the whole thing up, didn’t you?”
She squeezed his hand and replied, “Believe the story or not, as you wish. As for me, I’m sitting on a sofa in a locked, dark, abandoned house, holding hands with a handsome stranger, and telling stories by the light of a campfire on the prairie.”
Prints, Charming
Feeling her fingertips on his, seeing her as a shadow against the darker shadow of the room, focusing on the light reflected in her eyes, Oz realized how desperate he was. He wanted to believe that the coincidence of his drawing and her looks was magical, that she was his other half, that they were destined to be together. Such nonsense. They were strangers, and tomorrow they would be strangers again. At best, this could turn into a one-day stand. And why not try for that? It had been a long time since he last flirted. He was out of practice. He would need to reinvent himself for her. That could be fun, even if it got him nowhere.
“So, you’re serious about writing fiction in your new life?” he asked.
“As serious as I can be in a world that doesn’t take me seriously.”
“Then you’re open to suggestions?”
“You mean you want to correct my work?” she looked at him in disbelief.
“Another story just occurred to me, one based on the same premise.”
“The stage is yours, sir,” she intoned with a dramatic wave of her arm.
“Let’s shut our eyes and think of the moment when you first saw the picture. Imagine that you didn’t leave your iPhone at home. You have it with you. You open a magnifying app and bring it close to the picture. Even at 10X, there’s no sign of dots. Those lines are brush strokes. That means this could be an original, not a print; and the owner has no idea of that.
“What should you do? You could be a good scout and tell him, or you could offer to buy it for a few hundred dollars, maybe even a thousand — enough to tempt him, but not enough to make him wonder about its real value. But doing that would be taking advantage of him. It would be as bad as stealing, even though it wasn’t technically a crime.
“Instead, you put the picture on the bed and carefully remove it from its frame and glass, so you can see it more clearly. You check it once again with the magnifying app and confirm your first opinion. You realize you can take photos of it and make prints that you could sell, getting value from your discovery without cheating the owner.
“You take dozens of photos, experimenting with the lighting and trying different levels of magnification. Then you frame the original again and hang it back up.
“What next? You could pick the best shot and use it on eBay. Add a watermark to the image you post online, so no one can use your image to make prints in competition with you. Keep a low profile. No news stories. No overt marketing. No contact with galleries or art auction houses. Then, post your watermarked photo on Pinterest and Instagram, with links to your eBay offering. And post comments to blogs that discuss Chagall, with links to your eBay offer. Pose as a would-be buyer, asking people what they think of the picture, saying you wonder why you’ve never seen it before. At eBay, offer copies for a modest price, maybe $100 plus shipping, unframed, printed on high quality paper, poster-size, rolled in a tube. Ordered in bulk, a first-class printing job would cost no more than $10 each. You could sell hundreds of copies in the first year, and it would continue to sell, year after year. You wouldn’t get rich, but you would never have to get a job. You’d only have to fill the orders, and you could live in comfort wherever you wished.
“Before leaving town, you take a walk toward the beach to clear your head and work out the details. There’s nothing illegal about doing what you intend to do. The owner will still have his original. Whoever has control over Chagall’s estate doesn’t know this picture exists. In your listing, call it Chagall-like, complete with a Chagall-like signature. Don’t try to defraud anyone. It’s a picture that many people will want. Its price will have nothing to do with authenticity or provenance, just the quality of the picture, regardless of who created it.
“Rather than let this marvel hang in the obscurity of one man’s bedroom, you’ll make it available to the world at an affordable price. Chagall himself would have been pleased with what you’re doing. He wanted his work to be seen and appreciated.
“On your walk, you bump into an artist with a sketch pad, sitting on the sidewalk, drawing a candy-striped mailbox, a replica of a lighthouse, with an old, dilapidated house in the background. In an exuberant mood, you strike up a conversation with him. Since he’s an artist, you show him the photos of the Chagall on your phone, and you delight in his amazement.
“But as you swipe from one photo to the next, they are different from what you remember seeing in the B&B. And they differ from one another. You swipe back and forth, faster and faster — confused, frustrated, scared. Every time you go through them, the pictures morph — lines moving, colors appearing then shifting — until you’re looking at a single photo, a selfie of yourself and him, standing in front of the lighthouse mailbox in front of this very house.
“All your plans evaporate. There will be no business. But the two of you look so happy together in that photo that you realize you don’t need the Chagall. Instead, you’ve found the new life you were looking for.”
