The Wrong Renaissance
A rain-soaked flea market in Bruges at 6:47 AM, where a half-blind antiques dealer is packing up early and has just named a price of €200 for a painting that might be worth forty million.
Double and Bust are killing time before a train to Amsterdam when Double spots a small, smoke-darkened oil painting propped against a crate of brass doorknobs. The dealer says it's 'school of somebody, Flemish, who cares' — but the craquelure pattern, the lapis lazuli blue in the Virgin's robe, and the partial inscription on the back reading 'MEMLI—' suggest it could be a lost Hans Memling from 1487. They have eleven minutes before the dealer leaves. Buying it is €200 they can't really spare, but authenticating it later could take months, cost thousands, and might reveal it's a 19th-century copy worth exactly nothing.
“That blue doesn't come from a tube, Bust. Nobody fakes lapis lazuli for a doorknob crate — we're looking at retirement leaning against a bucket.”
“You know what else has beautiful blue paint and no resale value? The wall of a Holiday Inn. We can't afford months of authentication on a maybe-Memling.”
Double bought it anyway with the last of their trip money. Six weeks and €3,400 in authentication fees later, a conservator in Ghent confirmed it was an 1873 copy by a moderately talented Belgian nun — worth about €90 on a good day, and now permanently hung above Double's toilet as 'an investment in ambiance.'
Sister Whoever had TASTE, Bust — that blue still slaps, and I'm up spiritually.
We ate gas station waffles for three days in Amsterdam because of that nun.