Vaulting Ambition
The Opal Gallery was a prestigious art gallery eight miles outside Ardenvale, located in a grand country estate surrounded by sweeping Lancelot Jekyll parkland and formal gardens.
Visitors came from near and far to see paintings by the best artists worldwide and throughout history, followed by a brisk stroll by the lake.
Chris Johnson and his wife, Sophie, were amongst the vast ocean of tourists who flocked to the gallery to see what many assumed to be a lost da Vinci painting.
Tom Collinson, the gallery’s somewhat eccentric curator, had found the painting in storage.
He didn’t know what it was and had never seen it before, but he knew it was a da Vinci painting.
The painting was of a nearby mansion, Cedarvale House, currently the home of Fascist backbench MP Lord Christoph Flooding, as
seen from the public road.
“It’s quite disappointing up close, isn’t it?” Sophie said, examining the acrylic painting.
”You can’t expect da Vinci always to create a masterpiece,” Chris said.
“Yes. But, considering the queue we had to stand in to get here, you would hope to be met with something more outstanding,” Sophie said.
Just then, Tom Collinson himself entered the room to address the crowd.
“Marvellous, isn’t it?” He boomed in his distinctive baritone voice. “Only the Mona Lisa rivals its excellence.”
”And also not worth the price of entry and waiting time,” Sophie quietly said to Chris.
“Is it known when da Vinci visited Ardenshire?” One of the visitors asked Tom.
”Not exactly. But I would assume it was sometime in the 1480s,” Tom said.
Another visitor walked closer to the painting to admire it. “It’s surprisingly modern looking for a five hundred-and-forty-year-old painting, right?” They said.
“That’s because it is,” an unassuming middle-aged man said before slowly making himself known within the crowd.
Tom and the other visitors turned in his direction, curious why he would say that.
“How can you be sure of that?” Tom said. “Are you particularly knowledgeable about da Vinci?”
”No more than the average person,” the man said. “But I would recognise my painting anywhere, especially one I painted about three months ago.”
Many people in the room made audible gasps.
”Are you suggesting you created this da Vinci masterpiece yourself?” Tom said.
“I am,” the man said. “I handed it into the art gallery for public display, but clearly, you decided not to credit the original artist.”
”I had no idea who the original artist was,” Tom said. “There was no name on the painting.”
“I don’t usually sign my works,” the man said. “I just hand the paintings into art galleries and hope they remember my name.”
The other crowd members started exchanging looks and mumbling to one another.
”That might explain why it’s so disappointing,” Chris told his wife.
”Do you have any physical evidence that you are the true artist of this painting?” One of the visitors said to the man.
”More than Tom here has proof that the painting is a genuine da Vinci,” the man said, whipping out his phone and searching for something on it.
He held the phone aloft and showed everyone a picture of the painting he took in his studio a few months ago, just after he had completed it.
Audible gasps swept through the room. Tom Collinson felt incredibly small.
”Lord Flooding offered me a vast sum of money to hang it in his private collection, but he declined due to his political leanings,” the
man said. “Perhaps I was wrong in donating it for public display.”
Feeling cheated, the crowds slowly left the room.
”Do feel free to view the other artworks we have on display,” Tom said. “Or walk around the parkland.”
But it was too late. Before long, Tom was alone in the gallery.
He quietly removed the painting from its hanging and returned it to storage.
An 18th-century interpretation of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius replaced it.
It wasn’t long before news of the scandal spread across the country.
The Opal Gallery and Tom Collinson himself were facing backlash unlike anything they had experienced before.
Its reputation as a prestigious art gallery was in jeopardy.
Tom appeared on numerous news channels desperately trying to save his career even though he could quickly retire.
“I admit I never really thought it was a da Vinci,” Tom said. “I felt it would attract more attention if I claimed it was, and I was proved correct.”
The artist, revealing himself as Jack Walker, also talked to the media about his side of the story.
“I’ve been painting since I was five,” Jack said. “I started with random splatters of paint and hand prints, but I got better over time.”
The more people saw the picture of the painting reproduced over the news, the more they realised that Jack was a talented painter in his own right.
People called for lesser-known artists to be respected and treated the same as more famous ones, and activists demanded that the
Opal Gallery display Jack’s painting under his actual name.
Eventually, Tom decided to cave in.
He once again requested to speak to local news channels and newspapers, but this time to make an announcement.
“I am delighted to announce a new exhibition featuring Jack Walker’s landscape paintings of the local area, including the now famous portrait of Cedarvale House,” Tom said. “Starting this Wednesday.”
With just one announcement, he successfully saved his and the gallery’s reputation for posterity.
“It looks quite exquisite up close, doesn’t it,” Sophie Johnson said, once again looking at the original painting of Cedarvale House.
“You said it was disappointing a few days ago,” Chris said.
“That was when I thought it was a da Vinci,” Sophie said. “Now that I know it is by a relatively unknown amateur local artist, it’s perfect.”
The painting was now in the space reserved for special exhibitions; this was the first time the Opal Gallery had done one for someone no one had ever heard of.
Paintings of other landscapes in the local area, including Lord Arden’s home, Rosewood Hall and the home of his son and daughter-in-law, Alcester Hall, surrounded the one of Cedarvale House that started it all.
“Oh look, he even did our street,” Chris said, pointing to a painting depicting a row of houses.
“Were we in, then?” Sophie said. “I don’t remember a man with an easel outside our house.
“Maybe we were at work?” Chris said.
Some of the visitors looked out at the real-life painting beyond, comparing it to Jack’s acrylic version.
“It’s precisely the same view,” one of them said. “Down to the last leaf.”
“Well, you would expect that for someone who sat out there to paint it, wouldn’t you?” Their companion said.
Jack Walker stood at the back of the gallery, enjoying various people’s recognition of their homes, churches, and places of work in his paintings.
But he also felt a bit sad.
After all the furore, he realised that deep down, he did like the idea of a respected art curator mistaking him for da Vinci, even if it was an elaborate ruse.
In some ways, it was more exciting than being recognised as himself.
The Robinsonverse 