Murdering Matisse: A Novel

By Robert Lockwood

Henri Matisse’s Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France, is targeted by four adversarial factions. A New York City investment group seeks to buy it. The Vatican demands the security of the chapel’s iconic artistry and its resident Dominican order. The French government fears yet another act of cultural kleptocracy.

Finally, two Tunisian French medical doctors are offended by Matisse’s use of Arabic, Moorish, and Islamic decorative arts; and they discover the official dismissal of the early Arabic/Islamic medical science that fostered his full recovery from an early bout of duodenal cancer. They poignantly commit to the destruction of the chapel, unaware that ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) covertly invested in a Matisse masterpiece displayed there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781984575357

Robert Lockwood

Robert Lockwood, a reformed Washington lobbyist, represented many Fortune 500 companies and institutions on matters of taxation, international trade, and defense.

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Copyright © 2019 by Robert Lockwood.

ISBN:       Softcover   978-1-9845-7534-0

                 eBook         978-1-9845-7535-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 12/29/2018

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Contents

Acknowledgment

Cast of Characters

Chapter 1—Premonitions

Chapter 2—Reclaiming Bastille

Chapter 3—Many Lures of the Côte d’Azur

Chapter 4—Worldly Convergence

Chapter 5—Finding a Path

Chapter 6—Holy Orders

Chapter 7—Money Most Fetid

Chapter 8—Medical Artistry

Chapter 9—Surgical Strikes

Chapter 10—Matisse’s Message?

Chapter 11—Multiple Prognoses

Chapter 12—Holistic Medicine?

Chapter 13—New Entanglements

Chapter 14—Prophets, Provenance, and Profits

Chapter 15—A Revolutionary Agenda?

Chapter 16—A Floating Craps Game

Chapter 17—Collateral Dealings

Chapter 18—Martyrdom Can Wait

Chapter 19—Opaque Behavior

Chapter 20—A Scimitar’s Wide Swath

Chapter 21—A Multifaceted Plan

Chapter 22—Haunting Echoes

Books by Robert Lockwood

Nonfiction

French Nuclear Energy

Military Unions

Legislative Analysis

Fiction

A Culture of Deception

Political Ducks: Lucky, Lame and Dead

Au Revoir, Israel

Sweet Revenge

A Dragon Defanged

Artful Murder in the Hamptons

A Rogue’s Gallery

Jacob’s Legacy

Peter’s Pall

Murdering Matisse

Acknowledgment

So much is always demanded of those who dare to challenge a sacred cow. Perhaps that’s why intellectuals and realists can never get along. The intellectual has a soul, while the realist has means. It’s a dichotomy that comfortably characterizes, perhaps, the structure of this story. Matisse was at heart an iconoclast, collapsing the gates of fading neoclassicism along with Picasso. But Picasso painted what he imagined; Matisse painted what he saw.

In the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France, Matisse recorded Catholic doctrine with neoabstractionist fervor. The Dominican order, chapel administrators, and the Vatican have accepted his work with no less enthusiasm. The Holy See Press Office, under the enlightened leadership of Greg Burke, explained the absence of a conflict between the church and art by releasing Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Artists. In the text, Pope John Paul explains, A fruitful union between the gospel and art will bring about new manifestations of beauty … Elsewhere in the document, the Holy Father says, The heart of every culture is its approach to the greatest mystery: the mystery of God.

My gratitude extends to the Café Matisse—the convenient emporium where hours were passed in engaging differences, often conversations with total strangers, all with seemingly compelling convictions over Matisse’s many visual messages.

Madame Marianne Zak-Müller of the French Ministry of Culture released valuable information regarding the formalized policies of France regarding the Catholic Church and its properties, all of which were seized by the state after the French Revolution but later liberalized during Emperor Napoleon’s reign. The French Ministry of the Interior was no less cooperative in detailing the complex intelligence and antiterrorism paradigm that underscored a part of the story.

Much attention was given to Arabic and Islamic medical science and art. The written works of Aruna Viswama, Robin Wright, and Adam Nossiter were routinely consulted.

Despite the scholarship, experience, and belief of these many cooperative sources and the author’s personal commitment to historical fact, I remind the reader that this is a work of fiction, admittedly one with a historical foundation. Any oversights, mischaracterizations, or slights of any variety were unintended.

Cast of Characters

Major Characters in Alphabetic Order

Dreifuss, Doris—Co-owner of St. Gallen Instruments, a large Swiss company, who marries Peter Rosenthal. She becomes La Marquise de Puget-Thénier, a title Peter inherited from the French aristocrat who had adopted him. She later divorces Peter over a business conflict.

Dreifuss, Max—Brother of Doris and co-owner and operations officer at St. Gallen. He is noted for thoughtless slips of sensitive business information, which contributed to the divorce of Peter and Doris.

Esch, Becky—Peter’s first cousin who inherited the Mayer-Stern Art Gallery in New York.

Esch, Martin—Peter’s stepbrother who married Becky with whom he owned and operated the New York Art Gallery.

Kollar, Jean-Paul—Former French minister of culture under President Hollande. He is a visiting professor at Columbia and an occasional resident of his late mother’s house in Bridgehampton, Long Island. He joined Peter’s investment team that acquired the Matisse Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France.

Mayer-Lambert, Morris—The eighteenth viscount of Montolivo. He was a coinvestor in the Matisse Chapel acquisition. His American mother, Ann Mayer, was a founder of the Mayer-Stern Gallery. She married a distinguished art professor at the École des Beaux-Arts who was an aristocrat and the father of Morris. Morris directed the Centre des Recherches Internationals de Monte Carlo (CRIM).

Rosenthal, Peter—Fourth-generation president of one of New York’s most prominent real estate development firms. Divorced from Doris Dreifuss and bored with the easy successes of city development, he seeks investment in other asset classes, most notably famous works of art, which prompts his formation of an investment group to acquire the Matisse Chapel.

Other Influential Characters in the Story in Alphabetic Order

Abbes, Samir—A twenty-nine-year-old French medical doctor born of Tunisian immigrants. Abbes navigated through France’s rigorously meritocratic medical education, emerging a precocious oncologist with early commendations for his research into cellular engineering. He becomes vengeful and disillusioned by the smirking rejection of early Arabic/Islamic medical science and, later, Islamic art. Along with a colleague who shared his sentiments, Kamel Hamdi, also a first generation Tunisian and French-trained medical doctor, the two men conspire to commit an act to bring attention to the Islamic roots of modern medicine and art.

Albert II (prince)—His Serene Highness enthusiastically promotes the formation of cultural and educational institutions, like CRIM, in the Principality of Monaco, where he is one of only two remaining absolute sovereigns in Europe (the other being the pope).

Bitar, Mahmound—Finance minister of the Islamic caliphate, also known as ISIS. Realizing the imminent loss of ISIS efforts in Syria and Iraq, he is charged with investing ISIS funds in assets such as art. Working through ISIS’s lawyer, he commissions Max Dreifuss to acquire a Matisse work that would be placed on display in the Matisse Museum attached to the chapel.

Devon, Sue—A US senator from New York and close friend of Peter Rosenthal. She opens the door to negotiations with the Vatican for the sale of the chapel.

Desmond, David (monsignor)—General counsel to Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Ricci, a member of the Roman Curia. As an Irish priest, Monsignor Desmond manages to balance the Vatican’s interests within the scope of many legal systems, including those of the common law and civil code countries with canon law.

di Benedetto, Fausto (archbishop)—The apostolic nuncio to the United States. It’s a title and function similar to ambassador. The Vatican has its own diplomatic corps and training academy.

Dupont, Marc—President of France who replaces François Hollande. The forty-four-year-old newcomer formed his own political party to which center and right-center parliamentary members flocked as the socialists and communists were soundly defeated in the 2017 elections.

Fortunato, Fred—Senior executive of the Rosenthal Development Corporation. He negotiated Peter’s acquisition from the French government a shipyard owned by the Italian firm, Fincantieri, located in Saint-Nazaire, France. President Dupont had made Peter’s direct investment in France a condition to his acquisition of the chapel.

Garcia, Camila Castra—Counsel general of Venezuela in New York City. She initially recruited Samir for medical research in Caracas, an opportunity used by Samir to surreptitiously return to France via Venezuela and warn officials about the plan to attack the Matisse Chapel.

Hamdi, Kamel—French medical doctor of Tunisian descent who initially plotted with Samir Abbes the attack on Matisse Chapel.

Hamel, Daniel—Prime minister of France during the presidency of Marc Dupont.

Jazzar, Noelo—Lebanese attorney who represented ISIS.

Malot, Pierre Fouquet—Devoted personal confidant to Prince Albert.

Ricci, Pietra (cardinal)—Secretary of state in the Roman Curia.

Shadid, Ali Karim—Soldier in the elite Chasseurs Alpins of the French army. He reluctantly assists Kamel Hamdi to acquire a French missile to attack the Matisse Chapel.

Chapter 1

Premonitions

It’s mind-defying, Peter. The Vatican and the French government, agreeing to the sale of what has to be the most significant, contemporary example of church art in the 20th century, Doris Dreifuss whispered to Peter Rosenthal, her former husband. The two were on excellent terms. Doris’ investment in several Rosenthal enterprises seemed to smooth over the gaping emotional fissures of their stormy separation.

And sold to an investment group of seven, six Americans and a Frenchman. And five of us are Jews, he quietly replied, thinking: her English is amazing; almost no trace of her Swiss-German accent. She adapts quickly, but when married to me she realized change is my life’s norm.

You know, there might be something to that, she added.

You mean the Vatican’s agreement to allow the sale of the Matisse chapel? Peter seemed perplexed by her statement.

It was Wednesday, April 11, 2018, as they continued their chat in hushed tones as the Rosenthal Development Corporation’s Citation X+ started its taxi route to Fiumicino’s runway 16L. The cabin was designed to baffle away as much external noise as possible during all phases of the aircraft’s operations. The puzzling question raised by Doris was not something Peter immediately wanted to share with the five other passengers, all family and a family-like close friend but all investors in the project to acquire the iconic Matisse chapel, now a fait accompli.

Think about it, Peter. It began with Archbishop Fausto diBenedetto, the papal nuncio in Washington. He was clearly acting under orders from the Holy Father to enable the deal, Doris added.

Well, I wouldn’t say Monsignor Desmond, shared that feeling. He threw at us just about every obstacle he could conjure up. Peter was referring to Monsignor David Desmond, the Vatican’s chief counsel managing the final details of the chapel’s sale. The Irish cleric was as deft as he was tough, no doubt the very skills that brought him to the lofty heights of his Vatican office. He routinely balanced Catholic canon law with the secular sovereign jurisprudential venues throughout the church’s universal embrace.

Except…except the Jewish dominance among the investors, she said, as the executive jet lurched.

Yeah, you’re right, he replied, as the aircraft suddenly jolted then braked.

Sorry about that, folks, came the pilot’s voice over the intercom. The problem with general aviation in foreign destinations is what you just felt: miscues usually caused by language differences. A small Swiss Pilatus PC-24 suddenly appeared in front of us; no warning from the tower, it just happened!

Peter picked up the phone at his elbow. Tim, what the hell was that all about? he asked.

"Heavy traffic, sir. The small Pilatus takes one-third the take-off length that we do. It’s quick in, quick out for small planes like that. The tower obviously thought it could speed things up by getting the speedier babies off the decks. Chief pilot Tim Lyons, 46, was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and Air Force Academy graduate with 20 years of military flight experience. Once a pilot for President Bill Clinton’s smaller Gulfstream jet, RDC paid him and his co-pilot, Jerry Latham, 43, top dollar among corporate pilots, three times or more their former military compensation levels.

The jet was now headed toward its take-off position, giving Peter a quick chance to swing his seat around. He always directed the others on board to adjust their seats, so their backs are to the cockpit, a precaution in the event the aircraft lost an engine on take-off. Stay as you are everyone, he said loudly. Some crazy Swiss pilot tried to jump our line.

Send Doris out there to read him the riot act, said Marty Esch, Peter’s brother-in-law.

There was laughter throughout. Doris was known to be a tough cookie as a negotiator and debater, a reputation her Swiss friends and government authorities readily acknowledged. They were all close friends but never knew the real reason for the divorce; they just adopted Peter’s laissez-faire attitude toward her. Besides, all detected escalating changes in Peter’s attitude toward her and vice-versa. Hugs and embraces became more common lately, too often accompanied with mutually enthusiastic kissing that would pretty much disqualify Peter as a #Me.Too listee.

Peter returned his seat to its take-off position, saying to Doris: Let’s talk about this later.

* * *

It was 0610 on Wednesday morning, April 11, 2018, as the Cessna Citation X+ easily separated itself from earthly clutches. The powerful thrust of each of the small jet’s two Rolls Royce engines reconfigured the spines of all seven passengers into the contours of their seats.

The edges of Fiumicino’s 13,000-foot runway quickly disappeared in the early morning light. Rome, already brightly lit, could be seen to the South as the aircraft smoothly angled upward to its 40,000-foot cruising altitude, as if rising on some legless ethereal ladder. For several minutes, Peter was embedded into his seat, unable to crouch forward.

Finally, the angle of attack lessened as he and Doris swung their seats around, facing Marty and his wife, Becky Stern Esch, who was also Peter’s first cousin. The other passengers adjusted their seats accordingly. Now all seven were in two conversing modes, Peter’s foursome and the threesome behind. The latter group included Jean-Paul Kollar, the former French Minister of Culture and Communication, seated alongside Ruth Esch, the daughter of Marty and Becky; and Morris Mayer-Lambert. Morey, as he was familiarly called, was co-owner of the Stern-Mayer Art Gallery on Manhattan’s East Fifty Third Street.

The aircraft was at cruising altitude and had just leveled off. In the meantime, Peter had directed the steward to re-arrange the seats adding a center-aisle table, a feature highly desirable in the more upscale executive jet fleets.

Let’s have a quick breakfast, a chat and then we’ll snooze for a while, Peter was saying. Sorry to have gotten everyone up so early, he added, noticing on the front bulkhead clock that it was barely 0631 on the 24-hour digital clock.

No apologies needed, Peter; otherwise they’d never stop. When haven’t you gotten us up early? asked Morey.

Yeah, and sleep time? What are you giving us, ten minutes? added step-brother Marty, raising the group’s laughter quotient a bit more.

The two cabin stewards, masters at their trades, produced a copious buffet of breakfast breads, fruits, yogurt varieties along with caffeinated coffee for all except Ruth and her mother, Becky, who preferred an organic lemon balm tea. The two would vigorously argue the herbal tea’s medicinal benefits to just about anyone who would listen or dare to challenge their choice.

It’s been one amazing adventure, I have to tell you. There were many moments, before, during and even after the deal was closed yesterday that I thought things would fall apart. Still, there’s more to be done: we want the best and most relevant collection of Matisse artworks for the chapel compound, Peter was saying

And security, Peter; that bothers me a little. Not only are we exposed to thieves but to possible terrorism, said Jean-Paul Kollar.

I’m as worried about terrorism as I am theft, added Morey Mayer-Lambert. The motives between the two would be very different: thieves steal for value; terrorists destroy, especially cultural icons of Western Civilization, like the Matisse chapel itself as well whatever of his other artworks we might gather there. And, terrorists want attention to their causes, like the attacks in Nice on Bastille Day in 2016.

I defer to my good friend Morey but have to ask this question: isn’t it easier to protect against theft than terrorism? Kollar added. The others listened intently as they munched and drank.

That’s an obvious ‘yes,’ Jean-Paul, but at the same time, in answering a question with a question, doesn’t that add to the thieves’ incentives? If they know terrorism is unlikely, they also know several other things that could facilitate a theft. We’re giving thieves a menu: forget hardball security and focus on accession by other means. For example, theft is subtler, and the methods less visible than a direct terrorist assault, which can be lessened by physical security measures, such as road closings, barriers, overt armed guards, like the regional gendarmeries. Persons who steal or wrongfully acquire cultural artifacts operate very differently. They can replace artworks with replicas just before something is transferred after having been validated. They can intercept deliveries, bribe officials for access, create emergencies such as water leaks or electrical failures requiring persons pretending to be maintenance workers, and dozens of other ploys. Besides, we met with the French Interior Ministry and intelligence officials. They didn’t convey an impression that they were unprepared for terrorism.

That’s what worries me, Morey. French internal security forces can be smug. Just when they think everything’s under control, they slack off. Even during the Bastille Day attacks in Nice. Don’t forget this was just after the EU 2016 football championships when Nice was flooded with security: local Nice metropolitan police, the national judicial police and even the gendarmes. Within a few weeks, the Bastille Day disaster had too little security left in place to make a difference.

It worries me, too, Jean-Paul but I’m not going to become a hostage to it, Morey was thinking, then saying: It’ll be different this time. We’ve identified the chapel as a possible target and discussed it with security authorities in Paris. They’ve been alerted, and when we make the announcement of the purchase of the Matisse chapel, all eyebrows in France will pop. The security guys won’t be able to ignore us.

The breakfast finished, the group retreated to their seats, now in recliner positions for a long nap during the next four hours. Arriving back at the Islip airport and then on to Peter’s house on Rose Hill Lane in Water Mill, the tiny hamlet in the Hamptons that never seemed to surrender to the crass transformation of so many other villages in the area. It would be a week-end of celebration.

Chapter 2

Reclaiming Bastille

Two years and three months earlier, July 14, 2016, would have had a very different meaning to the Francophiles in Peter’s closest circle of family and friends. On the previous day, Wednesday, July 13, the air was slightly chilled in the Hamptons, especially along Hayground Cove off glorious Mecox Bay. The Rosenthals had maintained a house there for over a half-century, being early buyers of the precious bayside land as the Hamptons’ frenzy was being fed by New Yorkers seeking sanctuaries from the city. The Rosenthal compound was quite different from the fashionably walleted beachfront estates, many sprawling huddles of gushing wealth, glitz and glamour.

The Rosenthals spawned three magnificent family estates over several decades. Two ultimately went to cousins who were rarely seen but maintained them well. Peter occupied the most impressive of them, a 20,000 square foot residence where his father, David, had married the widow, Linda Esch. The union gave young Peter a step-brother who became his closest friend and confident: Martin Esch. Peter’s homey remnant of the compound’s trichotomy was rather cinematically idyllic, unfolding like the setting for a Katherine Hepburn movie.

Peter’s mother, Sandra Kaplan, had been murdered by Neo-Nazi German gangsters as her heated investigation steamed toward finding the true owners of Nazi-looted art in the possession of the Rosenthal family. The art had been acquired by Peter’s grandfather, Jacob (Jay), who as a U.S. Army officer at the end of World War Two, smuggled it back to the U.S. then committing the family to finding its rightful owners. Martin’s mother, Linda, died in Southern France where her small aircraft, flown by a well-experienced pilot, slammed into a cliff in the Maritime Alps’ range. This during a mission she had resumed after Sandra’s death.

Sandra had divorced David after falling in love with a French Marquis, Alex de Puget-Théniers, who adopted Peter. Peter inherited the title that he neither took seriously nor used. However, he later incorporated the extensive 6,000-acre French estate of his step-father into the holdings of New York City’s prosperous Rosenthal Development Corporation, of which he was the fourth-generation president of the family company.

Years later, Marty married Peter’s first cousin, Becky Stern, who inherited a fifty percent share of the highly reputable Mayer-Stern Art Gallery on East 53rd Street. The other co-owner, Morris Mayer-Lambert, was so deeply embedded in the Rosenthal family that only a blood test could establish otherwise. Morey’s background was somewhat like that of Peter. His mother, Anne Mayer, heiress to a department store fortune, married her professor when a student at the famous École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Professor Henri Lambert was an aristocrat who, during the French Revolution, changed his name from ‘de l’Ambert’ to ‘Lambert’ as a matter of survival. Henri was also the 17th Viscount de Montolivo, a title Morey inherited as the 18th Viscount.

In addition to Morey, three other persons were present who affiliated closely with the family. Doris Dreifuss, the Swiss heiress, had married Peter earlier that year, taking the title La Marquise de Puget-Théniers, one that she routinely used when in Switzerland where such grand titles were very rare. Persons of nobility enjoyed no special privileges, other than weighty status within highly select social circles.

Then there was Jean-Paul Kollar, 55. Kollar was the former French Minister of Culture and Communications in the administration of French President François Hollande. A distinguished art historian, he was born and educated in France but had tight bonds in the U.S. art and academic community. Earlier, he was as a visiting art professor at Columbia University where he was now a full faculty member. Having inherited a house on Ocean Road in Bridgehampton from his American mother, he was a bachelor and had become a popular but part-time Hamptons’ resident, and much in demand during the throbbing summer social season.

Now, Jean-Paul was involved with Ruth Esch, just about half his age at 27, and the daughter of Marty and Becky. The relationship deeply troubled Marty and drove mother Becky into occasional hysteria. Ruth, a graduate of the Yale Art School and Beaux-Arts, had become the manager of the art gallery on a day-to-day basis.

* * *

The family and friends had long planned their traditional Bastille Day celebration, taking time from work to ensure they were at the Rose