Lead Review
- Book: Picture You Dead
- Location: Sussex
- Author: Peter James
This is the 18th outing for DS Roy Grace and a good one it is too, and I do particularly like a thriller set in the art world. The author turns his hand to the world of Watteau and Fragonard, both artists who exemplified the “fête galant” genre, a category of painting specially created by the French Academy in 1717 to describe the former’s variations on the theme of the fête champêtre – featuring figures in ball dresses or masquerade costumes, disporting themselves amorously in parkland settings.
It is the work of the illustrious Jean-Honoré Fragonard that holds centre stage in this novel, and specifically his depiction of ‘Summer’, a painting in the series of Four Seasons.
Harry and Freya trawl Car Boot Sales in the hope of finding something exceptional, and Harry does find a picture, in a rather beautiful frame that catches his eye, only to be told on the Antiques Road Show that the painting hidden beneath may well be an original Fragonard. What elation for them! With the knowledge, however, comes danger in the shape of an unscrupulous collector and his henchman, and as a reader, one knows much more about their stealthy ways than the hapless couple in the story.
The novel opens with the death of an art connoisseur, who has a certain painting in his possession (as yet unidentified) and it is clear that some people are prepared to kill to augment their art collections. Provenance is a very important aspect in the world and any valuable works of art need excellent credentials (who owned them, sale details etc), as many paintings down the ages have been ‘lost’ and/or stolen to order. Nowadays there is a very strong move to reunite ‘missing’ artwork with the correct owner.
What if, though, you just want to own a specific painting, which you know to be genuine and don’t care about provenance? To hang it in your personal gallery where you can admire it in private? Some people go to any length to acquire specific pieces and provenance in that instance really is unimportant.
Throw in someone who is a gifted art forger and the plot evolves into an art buff’s dream storyline, with some violence and plenty of intrigue along the way. The scene is set for DS Roy Grace and his investigative team to piece together all the information. He is a very likeable character, with a backstory (as always), he and his partner are expecting a child (he has recently lost a child from a former relationship) and he can often literally be seen running off the cares of his job in the company of his dog.
There is delightful information on the world of art and painting that will keep readers enthralled, there is even a mention of L Cornelissen and Son – “the little shop of colours” – a store in London for hard-to-source artists’ equipment (where you can discover a myriad of beautiful ground pigments, spectacularly arranged in jars, colours galore, which makes for a magnificent sight and worth a visit!).
This is a good story that bowls along at a good paced, in the gifted hands of this author. It also leaves the reader pondering why one particular artwork might be worth more than another, given superficially they can each evoke the same wonder – just one is not created by an artist of merit!
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