Pas d'avant les domestiques

WYETH, Andrew
Caroline's World

RENOIR, Pierre Auguste
Ball at the Moulin Rouge

MUNCH, Edward
The Shriek

DE STAëL, Nicolas
Green Bottles

KLIMT, Gustav
Judith II

The magnificently framed pictures were labeled in gold letters on a black background. Some were covered with green curtains, which were not opened in the presence of young ladies.

The artist stood there, stunned, open-mouthed and speechless as he recognized half of his own pictures in the gallery. He was de Staël, Paul Klee, Kandinsky, Monet, De Kooning. He, all by himself, was many great masters.

What's wrong? You are turning pale.

Mama Bobbit exclaimed, Fetch a glass of water, to Chevis, their unflappable butler.

The painter collared Duncan Bobbit and took him into a corner, under the pretext of looking at an El Greco. Spanish paintings were fashionable at the time. On the way they passed François Miel's Grapes and Apples and Victoria Dubourg's Still Life: Corner of Table. Mouse noticed that these labels, which bore a tiny AmEx logo, had been mixed-up.

Do you buy paintings from Ulysses Magus?

Yes. He sells only originals, magnificent masterpieces.

Tell me in confidence how much you paid for the ones that I am going to point out.

They went round the gallery together. The guests were respectful of the artist's gravity as he proceeded to examine the masterpieces, accompanied by his host.

Three-thousand dollars! said Bobbit in a low voice as they came to the last one. But I say it's worth at least forty.

Forty-thousand for a Monet? the artist replied aloud. But that would be a gift.

Didn't I tell you I had a more than a million dollars' worth of pictures! boasted Bobbit.

I painted the pictures we've appraised, Mickey Keene whispered to him, Sold the whole lot for less than fifty-thousand.

If you can prove that, said the plastics manufacturer, I shall double my daughter's wedding present. For in that case, you are Monet, Warhol, and Keene combined.

And Magus is a clever art dealer, said the painter who now understood why his pictures were made to look old and the reason for the subjects the dealer had asked for.

far from
losing his admirer's high opinion of him, Mr. Mickey (for that's the name the family insisted on giving to him) rose so much in Mr. Bobbit's esteem that the painter charged nothing for the family portraits and naturally gave them as gifts to his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, and his wife.

Today, Mickey Keene, who doesn't miss a single Show, is considered from the Getty to the Corcoran to be a good portrait painter. He earns many thousands a year and ruins many hundred's worth of supplies. His wife's income funds various Art grants and he has left his studio to live in her home. The Bobbits and the Keenes, who get on splendidly together, attend many Art functions and are the happiest people in the world. Mr. Mickey mixes only in established circles, where he is considered one of the greatest artists of the period. No family portrait is painted by anyone other than this great artist, and at a fee that would drive Magus mad. The compelling argument for using this painter runs as follows: Say what you like, he laughs all the way to the bank. Because of his military background, the White House could not but commission work from so excellent a citizen. For that social season Mouse flew between the Capital and the Coast so that he could meet his old friends and say to them in an off-hand way, The First Lady has asked me to do the Presidential portrait.

Mrs. Mickey worships her husband to whom she has given two children. Yet this painter, who is a good father and a good husband, cannot rid himself of one distressing thought: other artists make fun of him, his name is a term of contempt in the studios, the critics ignore his work. But he goes on working. He is a candidate for the Academy and he will be elected. Then, too, his understanding of beauty allows him to regain his pride by a method that swells his heart with joy. He buys pictures from better painters when they are short of money and replaces the rubbish of the Bobbit's gallery with real masterpieces that he did not paint.

There are more irritating and ill-natured mediocrities than Mickey Keene. Moreover, he does good deeds without saying a word about them and is always ready to oblige.

	Turn the pages of the story
	Balzac Bonus: artSavant 3D Tile "Drapes of Math"
	Return to the top of the page