The Obsessions of Lord Godfrey - Stephanie Laurens Page 0,106
in the library. Could you fetch them, please?”
Faces lighting, Harry and Maggie leapt to their feet and hurried out.
Godfrey looked at Ellie, then at her father. “I’ve only seen one of the four. The other three were turned to the wall, but judging by the frames, I’m hopeful they will all be of similar ilk.”
Harry shouldered open the door and came in, carrying two of the paintings; he paused to hold open the door, allowing Maggie to enter with the other two.
Godfrey rose and lifted and lined up two side tables before the chair Masterton had previously occupied. “Let’s lean them along here.”
Ellie watched, intrigued, as Godfrey took each painting and briefly studied it before setting it on the floor in front of the tables, facing them all as Harry and Maggie resumed their seats.
Godfrey remained standing to one side of the line of frames. He pointed to the first. “This is the one that was facing outward, so I’ve had a little time to study it.” His gaze on the painting, he drew in a deep breath—as if he was holding in welling, geysering excitement. When he spoke, his voice sounded slightly strained. “I can’t be certain, not without examining it in better light and verifying all the necessary criteria, but I feel…” His tone lowered to one approaching reverence. “I’m almost certain it’s a Titian. Not just from Titian’s studio—there are quite a few paintings by his students—but from the hand of the master himself.”
With the rest of her family, Ellie stared at the canvas. It depicted two rather voluptuous women, partially unclothed, in what she took to be a garden setting.
“That one, alone, is close to priceless.” Godfrey pointed to the next painting. “And then there’s this one, which is almost certainly a Botticelli. His work is relatively easy to recognize. And this one, I think, is a Correggio, while this”—he pointed to the last of the four paintings—“is, I believe, by del Sarto.”
The supposed Titian and the Botticelli both featured scantily clad females, while the Correggio and the del Sarto were portraits of men and rather dark and dreary. The frames of all four paintings were richly ornate and, even after all these years, obviously originally gilt. Given that Ellie’s grandparents and her great-grandparents before them had been staunch Calvinists, it wasn’t hard to see why the paintings had been relegated to the attic.
Godfrey had remained standing, staring at the paintings. “In all honesty, finding four paintings of that time moldering in an attic isn’t that surprising. Our ancestors—especially those of the older families—collected paintings when on their Grand Tours. It was almost an expected part of that rite of passage throughout the seventeen hundreds. But subsequent generations didn’t appreciate the style of such artworks, so consigned them to attics or got rid of them.” He glanced at her father, then at Harry, Maggie, and finally Ellie herself, and smiled. “You are all inestimably lucky that your more-recent ancestors had an attic to which to dispatch these and that the attic is still in decent state, with no damp or rodents or rot.” He looked back at the paintings, and Ellie could hear the awe as well as the excitement in his tone as he said, “But most of all, you are unbelievably lucky that your old Uncle Henry had such excellent taste!”
They’d all heard and been infected by Godfrey’s rising enthusiasm. Harry leaned forward on the edge of his seat to better study the paintings. “So you’re saying that these are…what? More valuable than the Albertinelli?”
Godfrey nodded. “Any one would be worth at least as much as the Albertinelli, and the Titian and the Botticelli—assuming my judgment is sound and that’s what they truly are—are worth much, much more.”
The next ten minutes went in excited chatter as they peered at the paintings and asked questions, and Godfrey answered in scholarly style.
Eventually, they sat back and, still stunned by their good fortune, stared at each other.
“Well!” Maggie grinned widely. “What an amazing end to an exciting day.”
Smiling, Ellie nodded.
Her father tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Lord Godfrey.” When Godfrey, still standing, swung around and, smiling as much as any of them, looked at her father, he went on, “I’m not au fait with how such matters are arranged, but would you be willing to act for the family in selling one or possibly two of these?”
Godfrey hesitated, then glanced at Ellie, a question in his eyes.