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Naturally enough, it was an academic press that first brought my book out, as an expensive hardback intended mostly for university libraries, to a couple of enthusiastic reviews in specialist journals and general indifference. What catapulted it straight onto the bestseller lists was the sudden reappearance of Self-Portrait as Sphinx in January 1998.
When a letter from the Tate landed in my college cubby requesting that I visit London and offer my academic opinion on a painting by Juliette Willoughby—the only painting by Juliette Willoughby—which they recently had been offered on long-term loan, my first reaction was to panic.
There was, for obvious reasons, no mention in my book of my having found Self-Portrait as Sphinx at Longhurst, or stolen it, or how we had lost it at auction—although privately, Patrick and I had speculated for years about who the buyer might have been, whether they knew what they had stumbled across. Instead, in the book’s conclusion, I described finding Juliette’s journal and the photograph in the Witt Library, proving the painting had survived the fire, and ending on a note of sincere hope that one day it would reappear.
The moment I set eyes on the painting again, propped up on an easel in the office of the Tate’s Head of Collections, I recognized it as the one that had slipped through our fingers. Who owned it, the Tate couldn’t tell me—they were communicating through lawyers to maintain anonymity, which Patrick explained was not unusual for serious collectors. Some don’t want to be inundated by art dealers sharking for new clients; others worry that a high-profile loan alerts thieves to the caliber of the rest of their collection.
I was unsettled, and frustrated its owner would remain a mystery, but Patrick convinced me that overall this was good news. The painting was back, and about to go on display in one of the world’s most prestigious art institutions. My status as an authority on the subject would offer all sorts of media opportunities to bring Juliette’s life and work to a whole new audience.
“Frankly,” said Patrick, “I think we are both extremely lucky that whoever bought it at auction did so over the phone and never got to see the people bidding against them–otherwise we both might have all sorts of awkward questions to answer, wouldn’t we?”
I had to admit he was right.
Self-Portrait as Sphinx went on show at the newly opened Tate Modern to much media fanfare in 2000, newspapers worldwide covering the story, TV crews from as far afield as Japan and Argentina asking if they could interview me standing in front of it. At my publisher’s request, I swiftly wrote a new chapter on this miraculous rediscovery. My book was reissued with the painting reproduced in glossy color on the front cover instead of Juliette’s passport photo. This time it was reviewed everywhere, the publishers unable to reprint it fast enough to keep up with demand.
I did always mention it was Patrick who had found the photograph in the Witt, without which the painting could not have been authenticated. I did often suggest people interview him too. I was conscious that just as my career was going stratospheric, he was putting in eighteen-hour days at his gallery. It was a lot of pressure to put on a marriage.
The dark-haired woman placed my book down on the table, revealing a lanyard identifying her as Flo Burton, the events assistant I was waiting for to escort me to my talk. She did a double take, then smiled and offered her hand to shake.
“Professor Cooper? Lovely to meet you. Shall we head upstairs? We have a full house tonight,” she said as she ushered me toward the escalator. “It sold out weeks ago. Members love hearing from experts, and Self-Portrait as Sphinx is one of the most-visited paintings here...”
Every seat in the gallery was taken, and—a tribute to the cross-generational appeal of Juliette’s art and her story—there were teenagers next to pensioners, art students next to middle-aged couples in matching fleeces. Here and there, a past or present academic colleague or a former student. Flo clutched a piece of paper and leaned over the microphone.
“Good evening,” she began. “Please join me in welcoming Professor Caroline Cooper. As well as being the world’s preeminent expert on Juliette Willoughby, she was the guest curator of the exhibition Women & Surrealism here last year here and has written extensively on the movement in the 1920s and 1930s in Paris and beyond. We are very lucky to have her with us tonight for our lecture”—a glance at her piece of paper—“Rediscovering an Icon: The Story of Self-Portrait as Sphinx.”
She moved swiftly off to take a seat in the front row. Positioning myself behind the lectern, I reached into my bag for my glasses, making a self-deprecating comment about needing them these days. This got a far bigger ripple of laughter than it merited.
“Thank you, Flo. It is not every day you get invited to speak about a painting with it hanging right there on the wall behind you. Welcome, everyone.”
I took a sip of water.
“If you were asked to imagine an auction house on sale day, how would it look? You’re probably picturing Sotheby’s or Christie’s. Masterpiece after masterpiece placed with white-gloved hands next to the auctioneer’s podium, collectors lifting paddles and aggressively outbidding each other in million-pound increments. Well, forget all that. Most sales in the secondary art market in the UK—that is, paintings which have been bought and sold before, rather than fresh off the artist’s easel—are conducted in rather less glamorous settings. Dealing with lower-priced, lower-quality lots, provincial auction houses are in fact the backbone of the art market. But they are not often where long-lost Surrealist masterpieces turn up.”
Some more generous chuckles, from two women in the back row.
“And yet when you consult the catalogue, there it is, listed in the weekly sale at the Ely Auction Rooms on November 29, 1991. Lot 76: ‘Medium Oil Picture.’ If we were to take the painting behind me from the wall now, you would see the label with exactly that on the back. Its owner bought it that day via phone bid for four thousand pounds—well over the estimate.”
I smiled.
“It is worth considerably more than that now, of course.”
Sometimes this thought did pop into my head. That Patrick and I, under different circumstances, might both be really quite rich. Millionaires many times over, surely, given the cult of personality that has grown up around Juliette. It would certainly be worth more than any of Oskar Erlich’s works.
I tried to keep my face neutral as my mind flashed back to the horror of that moment in the auction room, the hammer falling, the realization of what we had lost, the absolute bloodlessness of Patrick’s face.
I did not blame him. That was what I told Patrick that night, as he paced, as he rubbed his face with his hands, as he swore, as he apologized. Of course I forgave him, I promised. What would have been the point of recrimination? I could not make him feel worse than he already felt. There was still the journal, I reminded him. We still had each other. That was what mattered. I wasn’t angry. But even at the time, I suspected that I could keep telling him that for the rest of our lives and he would never quite know whether to believe it.
I willed myself back wholly into the gallery, the moment. It was the official version of history I was supposed to be recounting tonight. The story not of how I had found the painting and lost it but how I had decided, once it later resurfaced, that it was the genuine article.
“There are really three ways in which you can try to authenticate an artwork. The first is to use documentary evidence to establish its provenance. With some paintings, there is a very clear paper trail leading you back to its first owner, to the time and place it was first sold, even the moment of creation. Unfortunately, with Self-Portrait as Sphinx that is not the case. We don’t even know who the vendor was in 1991, because when the Ely auction rooms closed down a few years later, all their paperwork was lost, most likely shredded or thrown away. What we do have are Juliette’s journal, passport, and pendant, which were all seemingly returned to Longhurst Hall after her death, before being bundled up with other material and donated to the University of Cambridge. So there exists proof that at least some of her personal possessions survived the Paris fire. Similarly, we have a photograph of Self-Portrait as Sphinx taken at Longhurst in 1961, although we don’t know how it got there or what happened to it next, and the Willoughby family have always insisted they have no idea either.”
In fact, Philip and Georgina Willoughby had repeatedly and brusquely refused to answer any questions about Juliette, the painting, or the journal, at all.
“The second way to authenticate a painting—or identify a misattribution or fake—is via technical inquiry. We had more to work with here. The signature on Juliette’s passport matches very closely the signature on the painting.”
I stepped out from behind the podium and crossed to stand directly in front of the painting, drawing a circle in the air around the bottom right corner. The audience, squinting, shifted in their seats.
“Paint analysis ascertained that the pigments used were of exactly the same composition as the color swatches daubed in Juliette’s journal. The vibrant green you see here,” I said, pointing to the robes of the hooded figure, “had traces of arsenic. And the white”—I indicated the dress of the drowned girl—“was laced with lead. Both compounds are now known to be highly poisonous but were still widely used in the 1930s. Radiocarbon dating of the wood and canvas showed them to be the correct age. And then there are the thumbprints on the back, where Juliette handled the frame with paint-covered hands. They match those left in the charcoal sketches in Juliette’s journal.”