Notes on the Dutch Painter

 My historical novels don’t include endnotes, which was an editorial decision. But those who like to dig a little deeper into the period may feel a bit cheated by their absence. So I intend to make it up to those readers (I’ve already added a partial bibliography to my Acknowledgements page). I've barely begun, but I intend to slowly rectify that. If you have any questions from your reading, just note them in the comments below, and I'll try to address them.

Check back for the missing endnotes to each of my novels.

The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle 

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter  

The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter

Pg. 9-- The Wacker Affair in 1928, strangely enough, was the making of van Gogh, bringing him more publicity than he'd ever seen since his death in 1890. Some thirty van Gogh paintings, marketed by Berlin art dealer Otto Wacker, fell under suspicion of being forgeries. The paintings were first certified genuine, then declared fakes, then accepted as genuine. Today the verdict is in: fakes, every one. Wacker was convicted of fraud in 1932. By then, the press had made van Gogh a household name.

Pg. 13--First to exhibit painters of the Barbizon school and the Impressionist, Paul Durand-Ruel is considered the premiere art dealer of the 19th  century. The French public mostly laughed at the Impressionists, so he cultivated the American market, which was not as sclerotic. "The American public does not laugh," he said, "It buys!"

Pg. 14--Julien Tanguy, better known as "Pere Tanguy," sold paint supples to artists and provided them with free meals when they were down on their luck, selling their paintings on consignment. Early on he championed both the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. He was an especial supporter of Cezanne, introducing his work to Paris and the art world.

Pg. 14--Goupil et Cie, founded in 1850, which changed its name to Boussod et Valadon in 1874, became one of the leading art dealerships in the world, with its headquarters in Paris, with branches throughout Europe, as well as in Australia and New York City. Vincent Van Gogh joined the firm as a partner in 1861--not that Vincent, but the uncle of Vincent and Theo. Vincent himself was employed by the firm from 1869--1876, when he was sacked. He later took up painting himself. Theo did rather better at the Paris branch on the Rue Montmartre, selling some 1,000 paintings during his decade-long tenure there.

Pg. 16 --By the summer of 1890 Monet had produced only six pictures of haystacks. In late summer he began work on his series twenty-five pictures of haystacks near Giverney.

Pg. 18--Ivan Lermolieff was the nom de plume adopted by Giovanni Morelli, the Italian art critic and historian who developed "the Morelli method" of art identification and authentication. He used the name for the publication of his theories. Lermolieff is a Russified anagram of Morelli. Holmes borrowed the name for the (unnamed) disciple Morelli sent in his stead to assist Holmes (calling himself Vernet, the name of his mother's French forebears) in identifying certain forged masterpieces.

Pg. 20--Eugene Dupuis was a banker and financier who was also an early collector of impressionist and post-impressionist art, so much so that Theo van Gogh called him "the loyal Dupuis." He collected Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec as well as Monet, Degas, and especially Pissarro. He was ruined and took his own life in November 1890.

Page 20--A circus acrobat at fifteen, Suzanne Valadon became a model for painters such as de Chavannes, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec, her lover for two years. She learned art by observing the techniques of those she posed for, and went on to herself become a painter of some note, best known for her frank female nudes. She passed her talent on to her son, the painter Maurice Utrillo.