Caravaggio
We were at Glastonbury and she was small, blonde and Irish and really hesitant but also really keen to have a go. She was tentative with her hammer action at first but slowly got into the process of making a hook, began to understand how the metal moved under the blows and the necessity for accuracy rather than strength. As she relaxed into it, we started to chat about ourselves and it turned out that she worked in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.
“Oh,” I said, “one of my favourite places… the Caravaggio!”
I have sat long hours in front of that extraordinary and dramatic painting, The Taking of Christ, and its story is fascinating. Considered lost for 200 years, it was rediscovered in the 1990s hanging in the dining room of the Jesuits in Dublin. A remarkable piece of detective work led to its confirmed attribution rather than the copy it had been supposed to be.
So she and I happily chatted about the gallery, other favourite pieces (mine has to be Harry Clarke’s exquisite stained glass, Song of the Mad Prince, which I covet) and the role and place of art and craft in our culture.
She returned later with her barter, a copy of Jonathan Harr’s ‘The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece’ which tells the full story of the detective work that led to its rediscovery.
It really couldn’t have been a more perfect exchange.
Kate The Wordsmith 