An Inside Job by Daniel Silva

Author:Daniel Silva [Silva, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780063384217
Google: S8zw0AEACAAJ
Amazon: 0063384213
Barnesnoble: 0063384213
Goodreads: 220435864
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2025-07-15T05:00:00+00:00

30

San Tomà

Gabriel caught an early train to Milan the following morning and from a reputable Old Masters gallery near the Duomo purchased a midsize devotional painting, oil on walnut panel, perhaps sixteenth century, by an unknown artist from the Northern Italian School. The price was ten thousand euros, more than he had hoped to spend, but the panel itself was in remarkably good condition, with no fractures or supporting structures and only a slight convex warping. The dealer insisted the dimensions were 80 by 58 centimeters, though Gabriel suspected the actual width was closer to sixty. He remeasured the panel with his iPhone and, as expected, was proven correct. The dealer, embarrassed, revised the dimensions in the final sales contract.

With the painting tucked into a nylon case, Gabriel walked to the convent of the Santa Maria delle Grazie to have a look at The Last Supper. Then he took a taxi to Milano Centrale and caught the 1:20 back to Venice. It was a few minutes after five when he arrived at the apartment. He laid the panel on the worktable in his studio and with a razor-sharp scraper and a heavy heart did violence to the work of the anonymous sixteenth-century Northern Italian artist.

Next morning he carried his ten-thousand-euro plank of walnut to the mainland woodworking shop of one Marco Amato. He instructed Marco to shave two centimeters off the panel’s height and four from its width—and to do it in a way that the alterations were not visible. He then informed Marco that he required still another panel, of oak rather than walnut, and provided the woodworker with a high-resolution photograph of how he wanted it to look.

“The same size?”

“The same everything. I want you to make an exact duplicate of that supporting panel.”

“May I ask why, Maestro Allon?”

“No, you may not. And if you call me maestro one more time I’m going to shave two or three centimeters off you.”

Gabriel returned to San Polo and spent the remainder of the day in his studio working on a preparatory study of a nameless young girl who had lived in Milan more than five hundred years ago. He based his composition on two sources—Leonardo’s original silverpoint sketch and the Zurich Insurance Group photograph of the painting in its current condition. He made four sketches in all, then, with Chiara looking over his shoulder, chose one. With a steel-tipped scratch awl, he pierced the sketch with hundreds of tiny holes, or spolveri. The three remaining sketches he burned.

He returned to Marco Amato’s workshop late the following morning to collect his costly piece of walnut, which was now 78 by 56 centimeters. Back in his studio, he prepared the panel as Leonardo’s studio assistants would have prepared his—with layers of wood oil and lead white paint mixed with finely ground soda-lime glass. Three days later, when the preparation was sufficiently dry, he laid the sketch atop it and sprinkled the paper with powdery wood ash he had gathered from the hearth in the sitting room.

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