I shake my head. “Not yet, thanks.”
Her face falls slightly. Working on an original piece of art rarely happens, and it’s a bucket-list item for most of the young conservators. “But you’ll be the first one to know if I do.”
Once Isla returns to her own workstation, I go back a few seconds on the audio card and press play again.
“I don’t need to tell you what this means, Tilly. Also, there are some strange features of this painting, similar to the others. I’m not sure how much your mother told you about her experience with Leclerc,” Cecil says, then pauses. “There’s also an NDA, which I’m hopeful isn’t an issue for you?”
It’s not, and I’m not surprised. Especially with the magnitude of the discovery, and the fact that this painting is part of a private collection.
A loud beeping breaks through, GIA’s mechanical mover—a platform with caterpillar-like tracks to ensure a smooth ride—coming toward me.
“I’ll look forward to hearing from you,” Cecil’s message closes out. “Godspeed, Tilly.”
The following day I stand in front of the package, doing a quick round of box breathing. I’ve spoken with Cecil, signed the NDA, cleared my schedule for the rest of the week. I can’t wait to get started—the prospect of working, with my hands, on an active conservation thins out my patience. I’m struggling to hold my breath for the allotted time. But I want to be calm when I finally view the piece. My hands as steady as they can be.
In through nose for four, hold for four, out through mouth for four, hold one-two-three-four.Repeat. It’s also not easy from behind my face mask, meant to protect me from possible off-gassing once I unwrap the piece. I’ve turned my watch notifications off to avoid distraction, so there’s no vibration, no gold star, when I finish the box breathing.
I’ve been at GIA for six years, starting shortly after my yearlong maternity leave ended. Once Clementine turned one, she entered the state’s subsidized day care program, and I was able to go back to work. I’ve only been in Room D a handful of times, forgetting how quiet it is, minus the low hiss of the air return. I take in the gleaming stainlesssteel workbench that hydraulically converts from flat to raised, depending on preference and need. The new and plentiful conservation tools at my disposal. There’s also a top-of-the-line portable scanning electron microscope, or SEM, which is highly coveted by conservators.
The last time Room D was used was about two years ago. I think of the tools at my personal workstation—the simple stereo microscope, the many paintbrushes, spatulas, bamboo skewers, and fine-edged blades for precision work, which rarely get used. Hypodermic needles and ancient porcupine quills, which I brought with me when we moved here, long-ago plucked by my mother from some poor porcupine that met its end on a Canadian highway. I have never found anything better for the finest pinpoint work, so they are a treasured part of my conservation toolbox.
Satisfied with my clearheadedness, I step forward and press the air release valve on the package. There’s a sound like a balloon losing its air, and the package changes shape. I pinch the zipper-sealed seam at the top to open it.
It has already been scanned with infrared and X-ray. Minuscule flecks from the surface placed under the AI-enhanced microscope have verified material types and other details. I open the file of findings on my tablet, reviewing them again. I’ve practically memorized the file, having gone over it a dozen times already. But I like to be thorough.
Now I better understand why this piece is believed to be the fourth and final Charlotte Leclerc. It has her markings all over it. No signature, as is typical, but instead a luna moth outline she used as a cipher, hidden underneath a layer of paint and visible only on scans; her preference for oil paints mixed with sand and other natural elements, to add texture and layers to the art; the use of heavily pigmented colors, with favoritism for black; and, a most telling finding—the presence of human blood.
Another Leclerc rumor, which gained traction on unmonitoredart-related message boards, is that she recruited blood donors to her studio. Medical students who needed extra money, for example. Still others suggested she kept it simple, using her own blood. Unfortunately, Cecil said microsampling couldn’t produce reliable DNA results, due to degradation from the high heat, so we can’t know whose blood she used—only that it’s human.
I slide the de-puffed packaging down the boxy frame. A cloudy sheet of biodegradable plastic covers the entirety of the piece, but it separates easily with a cautious slice of my self-retracting knife. When I see the enormity of the damage, I lose my breath. Cecil wasn’t kidding when he said this was going to be complicated. The entire canvas is blackened, with a few burn holes near the bottom edge, through the full thickness of the material.
I lean close and turn my head sideways so I can view the planes of the piece. The paint, where I can determine paint, is bubbled and has a greasy black sheen, similar to the way creosote clings inside a chimney pipe. I can’t determine artistic composition, the soot layer hiding any clues.
I use a soft-bristled brush in small areas around the edges. No residue is removed, so I shift to solvent testing. The first solvent isn’t up to the task, nor is the second. Holding a cotton swab firmly in hand, I test a small area (less than a half inch), starting at the bottom left corner. Every conservator has her own process for approaching a conservation, and my preference is bottom to top. That way I won’t get bleeding down the length of the painting, on the rare occasion a solvent drips.
With steady, gentle pressure I apply the solvent-dampened cotton in short rolls. Black comes away on the cotton, and with a surge of panic I quickly turn on my Luminara glasses. The paint underneath the soot is a different shade, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Suspecting I have the correct solvent, I test four other spots on the canvas to be sure—top right, two in the center, bottom right. Satisfiedwith the result, but the composition still a mystery, I decide I’ll work across the painting. Left to right, bottom to top. It’s going to be tedious work, but the thrill is worth the eyestrain. Solving a puzzle and uncovering art is the best high I have ever found.
I glance over at the X-ray image on my tablet. With a gentle, glove-covered finger I touch the canvas at the exact spot Leclerc’s cipher—the luna moth, with eyelike markings and dangling tails from the hind wings—glows on the X-ray image. Bottom right, a standard placement for an artist’s mark.
Later, while researching the cipher, I’ll learn the vibrant-green luna moth is one of the largest in North America. Its pupa stage lasts for an incredible nine months, the same as a human’s gestation, and then ten days after hatching it dies. Depending on which internet source you ask, this moth symbolizes transformation and new beginnings. I also find another meaning: for some, the luna moth represents the brevity of life.
Right below the luna moth, in fine, white-inked cursive writing (the artist’s own, I presume) is the title of the piece.The Mother.
I squat a few times, trying to dissolve the tension from my legs. I shift my Luminara glasses to “harsh, waking light” mode, allowing my gaze to soften as I lean over the piece, looking again for shapes or patterns within the blackness. But there are none I can discern.
“Let’s see what you’ve left for me, Charlotte.” I sit on the wheeled stool, using my heels to roll closer to the workbench. I cast my eyes down, being cautious I don’t knock into anything, but when I raise them something shimmers across the painting. It’s subtle, like a ripple from a raindrop in a glass-surfaced pond. I stop abruptly, the soles of my shoes squeaking loudly against the flooring. Squinting, I search the blackness for signs of movement, but there are none. It’s still, unlike my pounding heart.
Charlotte Leclerc is not going to give up her secrets easily. The fire damage is terrible, the conservation made trickier by the artist’s use of black oil paint as background. The painting remains flat because I find it easier on my neck and shoulders to work this way.
“What happened to you?” My face is inches from the surface as I gently roll the swab over a one-by-one-inch blackened spot. My voice echoes in the room, the air return distracting. I set my earbuds to noise-canceling mode.
Unlike me—I prefer a pin-drop-quiet workspace—my mom loved playing music in her at-home studio while working on freelance projects. I found the music disruptive so would watch her instead of doing my homework. Her confident hands moved across the art with such control. Now, seeing my own hands, I’m momentarily halted by how similar they look to my mother’s. Long fingers, prominent knuckles, veins beginning to peek through the fascia as my age creeps up.
After the cleaning session, when I remove a narrow band of soot along the bottom, I spend the rest of the day meticulously documentingdetails. Rereading the notes on previous Leclerc paintings, which Cecil sent in a second file.
I already know most of the lore, but some of the particulars are new to me. Including the musings of a journalist who gained access to the Leclerc art, under the condition that she would keep the collector’s name and location anonymous. In the article—published in an art and design magazine about seven years ago—this writer speaks of being overcome with deep melancholy; a sense of “impending doom, like a terrible fate was coming my way” is the exact phrasing she used, upon viewing the pieces at the collector’s home. Hanging original art in homes is highly unusual nowadays, due to flood and fire risks. A few photos are included with the article, and I flip through those.
