The Portrait E-Book

Antoine Laurain

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 138

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Pierre-François Chaumont has promised his wife that he won't spend another centime at the auction house. His collecting habit is out of hand and she refuses to let another antique through the door. With his marriage at stake, he fully intends to keep his word - until he sees an eighteenth-century portrait that looks exactly like him.The painting's history will reveal an astonishing secret about his past and open the door to an entirely new future. A passionate collector, Pierre-François is used to giving in to temptation - but is he willing to risk everything to satisfy his deepest desires?PRAISE FOR ANTOINE LAURAIN:'The very quintessence of French romance' The Times'A master storyteller'Huffington Post'A delightful literary soufflé'Library Journal'Effortlessly eloquent, quietly hilarious and consistently self-aware ... a delightful read crammed with all kinds of decadent goodness'Reader's Digest

Leseprobe

1praise for

FrenchWindows

‘Masterful storytelling that brings the streets of Paris to life. And enough twists and turns that will leave you wondering what the hell is going on right until the last page’

Sun

‘Intriguing, comic and poignant by turns, this is a sheer delight’

Guardian

‘This short but sweet mystery is… a delicious jeu d’esprit’

TheTimes

‘FrenchWindows oozes Parisian perfection with a good dose of mystery, intrigue, and suspense from a master storyteller’

ChicagoBookReview2

praise for

An Astronomer in Love

longlisted for the dublin literary award 2024

shortlisted for the edward stanford viking award for fiction 2024

winner of the prix de l’union interallié and the grand prix jules-verne 2023

‘Perfect for the poolside or sitting outside a café with a pastis and olives – and bound to give you just the same cheering lift’

TheTimes

‘A brilliant love story… The supporting cast, including a not-quite-dead dodo and a zebra, will have readers laughing and crying in equal measure’

TheLady

‘Cinematic and enchanting’

ForewordReviews (starred)

‘Simply beautiful. An enchanting dual-timeline story of a love written in the stars’

Fiona Valpy, author of TheDressmaker’sGift

‘A witty, lovely, surprising triumph’

William Ryan, author of AHouseofGhosts

praise for

French Rhapsody

‘If it wasn’t so funny, you’d weep’

Le Figaro3

‘Beautifully written, superbly plotted and with a brilliant twist at the end’

DailyMail

‘Has Laurain’s signature charm’

SundayTimes

praise for

Vintage 1954

‘A glorious time-slip caper… Just wonderful’

DailyMail

‘Delightfully nostalgic escapism set in a gorgeously conjured Paris of 1954’

Sunday Mirror

praise for

ThePresident’sHat

‘A hymn to lavieParisienne… enjoy it for its fabulistic narrative, and the way it teeters pleasantly on the edge of Gallic whimsy’

Guardian

‘Flawless… a funny, clever, feel-good social satire with the page-turning quality of a great detective novel’

Rosie Goldsmith

‘A fable of romance and redemption’

Telegraph

‘Part eccentric romance, part detective story… this book makes perfect holiday reading’

TheLady4

‘Its gentle satirical humor reminded me of Jacques Tati’s classic films, and, no, you don’t have to know French politics to enjoy this novel’

Library Journal

praise for

TheRedNotebook

‘A clever, funny novel… a masterpiece of Parisian perfection’

HM The Queen

‘In equal parts an offbeat romance, detective story and a clarion call for metropolitans to look after their neighbours… Reading TheRedNotebook is a little like finding a gem among the bric-a-brac in a local brocante’

Telegraph

‘Resist this novel if you can; it’s the very quintessence of French romance’

TheTimes

‘Soaked in Parisian atmosphere, this lovely, clever, funny novel will have you rushing to the Eurostar post-haste… A gem’

DailyMail

‘An endearing love story written in beautifully poetic prose. It is an enthralling mystery about chasing the unknown, the nostalgia for what could have been, and most importantly, the persistence of curiosity’

San Francisco Book Review5

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Contents

Title PageI.The Man Who Loved ObjectsII.The Absentee Reading Group Discussion PointsAn extract from French Rhapsody More from Antoine LaurainAbout the AuthorsCopyright

11

I.

12

THE MAN WHO LOVED OBJECTS

13

It sits at the bottom of a field: a windowless shed of corrugated iron a hundred metres square, with lights that stopped working some time ago. Each summer the metal walls heat up in the sun, making the temperature inside almost unbearable.

I could have hooked a lamp up to the electricity but I prefer candles. One by one I light twenty of them, which are arranged at random. Then I smoke a cigarette and pour myself a glass of whisky. It’s a ritual. Behind an industrialsized petrol can I keep an excellent Bowmore, still young. Like all great whiskies, its flavour has overtones of leather and peat, and its colour is light like chicken broth, not the amber of revolting bourbons. I drink it from a silver Louis XV mug that sits waiting for me on an old wooden workbench each time I visit. The metal walls have never been painted, but they have gradually rusted to that hue artists call burnt sienna. A brown so vibrant it is almost red.

I come here once or twice a month and spend a good two hours contemplating my collections, as I used to do 14in my study. I have many snuffboxes, some gold, some tortoiseshell, and wrought-iron keys decorated with dolphins or mythical beasts, glass paperweights with multicoloured patterns locked inside them, smelling-salts bottles made of the yellow fluorescent glass known as uranium glass, Dieppe carved-ivory virgins, hauteépoqueruby goblets and so many other objects. They are displayed on an old workshop table where I also have a cabinet with many compartments. I have stored various things in each of the twenty-four pigeonholes. It’s a bit like those advent calendars I used to open as a child. There was a door for each day, and behind every door a little compartment containing a plastic toy. I went from day to day and from surprise to surprise right up to Christmas Eve when the real presents arrived.

All the presents I have given myself throughout my life as a collector are gathered here. It is my cabinet of curiosities, hidden from the prying eyes of others like secret rooms filled with fabulous objects should be, jealously guarded for their one true master. My cabinet of curiosities, tucked away as it is at the bottom of a farmer’s field in the heart of Burgundy where there is no mobile phone signal, is particularly curious.

The summer heat is suffocating and the bales of hay that have been piled up to the roof of the shed for years and years are so dry that they could spontaneously combust at any moment. At the back, on the right, resting on bags of out-of-date fertiliser, is my portrait with its coat of arms. 15Today I think I understand what really happened with that picture.

Now I sit down on the little rattan chair and, taking the first mouthful of whisky, ask the usual question, out loud. It makes me smile every time: ‘Pierre-François Chaumont, are you there? Knock once for yes, twice for no.’

Then as I put my silver mug smartly down on the workbench, the ring of metal on wood produces the answer.

It all began a little more than a year ago. Far from Burgundy, in Paris. 16

16

It was late spring, and for several weeks I had been trying to make modest inroads into the living room. Bit by bit, over several years, my wife had succeeded in exiling my fabulous collections to one room of our apartment and now the ‘study’ was where all my treasures were stored. But I had recently broken through enemy lines in order to return a few Saint-Louis paperweights to the coffee table. Not long before, a terrible accident had seen a Baccarat crystal piece fall against the side of a bronze mortar and break clean in half. Two thousand euros up in smoke. The financial damage persuaded Charlotte to grant the remaining paperweights a safe haven. We agreed on the coffee table.

The following day, I fetched my matching burgundy Gallé vases with a moth motif and placed them either side of the fireplace, as my wife looked on disapprovingly.

‘Break these and that’ll be a hundred grand gone,’ I told her, anticipating any snide remarks, and quoting the value in francs to ensure the already-inflated price tag had maximum effect. 17

The money argument clinched it, and I wondered what else I could claim was priceless and thereby bring back to the living room.

I had not bid for anything at Drouot Auction House for some time. Auctions are more intoxicating than any drink and, in contrast to a casino, even when you lose you still somehow feel like a winner: the money you had set aside for the lot you’ve missed out on is magically returned to your bank account; in your mind you had already spent it, so when you leave the auction house you feel richer than when you walked in. It sometimes seemed to me that I might do well to get myself barred from Drouot, the way some gamblers have themselves banned from casinos. I pictured a big, burly bouncer, dressed like the doorman of a luxury hotel, letting everyone past until he caught sight of me.

‘Maître Chaumont,’ he would say politely but firmly.

‘Sorry, I think there’s some mistake. My name is Smith, Mister Smith…’ I would reply in my best English, hiding behind dark glasses and a scarf.

‘Game’s up, Maître Chaumont. We know who you are. Off you go.’

A few hours later I’d be back with my hair dyed blond. No sooner would I approach the door than the bouncer would shake his head, closing his eyes. Never again would I step inside the auction house.

For several weeks, I had spent every waking hour on Durit BN-657. A key component in the development 18of Formula 1 engines, this one small part would – so its inventor said – be the making of future Schumachers, Häkkinens and Alonsos. Two teams were disputing ownership of Durit, each claiming it had come out of its own research lab, and once again Chaumont–Chevrier legal partners had been drafted in to help. Since there was a fair bit of money at stake, Chevrier had shelved a more run-of-the-mill logo infringement case to provide back-up on Durit.

One lunchtime as he was getting his head around the case, I took a break to do what I liked best: taking a stroll around the exhibition halls at Drouot. Our office was fifty metres from the auction house – a deciding factor in the choice of premises. After wolfing down a sandwich and a bottle of lemonade, I headed inside. I glanced around a sale of Asian art. The sole lot consisted of a single erotic print showing a woman on very intimate terms with a giant octopus. Not being much of a one for bestiality or cephalopods, I moved swiftly on.

The first floor was overflowing with porcelain and rosewood chests of drawers. A weaponry sale was also taking place, drawing interest both from curious laymen and specialists in gunpowder and flintlocks. I headed to the basement. The sales down there were never hyped up in the way those held on the first floor were, and I had heard of people who bought exclusively from those auctions, reselling their purchases upstairs a few months later and living off the profits. 19

I ambled into a room where a collection of stamps was being exhibited ahead of a sale. My gaze wandered over depictions of the multicoloured feathers of tropical birds, the Italian lakes and profiles of the saviours of various countries. Having no great love of stamps, I carried on to the next room, which was devoted to taxidermy. From the hummingbird to the zebra, virtually the entire animal kingdom was represented here. An anteater caught my eye, but I sensed that to take such a thing home might not be the path to domestic harmony. And yet even if I had bought the entire collection and filled every room in the house with stuffed animals, the consequences would still have been far less than what was to come.

With weary eyes, dragging my feet, I entered room eight. Wardrobes, dressers, console tables and mirrors were piled high. The assorted collection of items resembled a jumble sale or a furniture clear-out, and contained nothing of style or value. I had almost reached the back of the room and was casting my eye over a display of cheap trinkets and ugly paintings on the walls when I saw it.

Sixty centimetres by forty. An eighteenth-century pastel in its original frame, of a man wearing a powdered wig and blue coat. In the top right-hand corner, a coat of arms I couldn’t make out. Yet it was not the coat of arms that grabbed me, but the face. Transfixed, I could not tear my eyes away from it: the face was my own.

20

That portrait of me, painted two and a half centuries ago, which I came across in my forty-sixth year, was to turn out to be the high point of a collection I had been adding to for years. Each successive year, each successive object, and each successive docket had been leading me here to this late morning in room eight of Drouot Auction House. But it is to the very beginning of my life as a collector that we must return, to my very first purchase. I was nine years old and, being the good lawyer I am, I shall name that episode the ‘Eraser Affair’.

Arthur, our faithful old basset hound, had died in his sleep from a massive heart attack. Two weeks later my mother bought an identical dog, but smaller. I found this attempt at replication tasteless and an insult to the memory of the first dog. I had suggested getting a black Dobermann, as a change from the basset hound, and had gone as far as to suggest a name, ‘Sorbonne’, in homage to Jean Rochefort’s dog in Angélique,MarquisedesAnges, which I had watched avidly in the Easter holidays. But my suggestion found no favour and my parents indulged their 21chronic lack of imagination and called the new dog Arthur as well.

Not long after, my mother dragged me with her on one of her afternoon shopping trips. Her favourite haunt was Old England on Boulevard des Capucines, an old-fashioned luxury department store where she insisted on buying me grey flannel trousers and navy-blue blazers. Ever since then I have had a horror of mouse grey and dark blue. I would not now wear a jacket in that shade of blue for anything, and I would rather go to work in my boxer shorts than in grey trousers. At that time, all I wanted was jeans, but denim was forbidden at the Cours Hattemer, the private school I attended. When she had tortured me by forcing me into hideous, outdated garments, my mother pressed on to the other department stores. There she tried on various outfits which, as usual, did not suit her. Then we went down to the stationery department; it was the beginning of the school year and I needed supplies for my pencil case. My mother bought me a yellow, banana-scented eraser, with the face of a panting Dobermann printed on it. No doubt followers of Freud would detect a hidden meaning behind this act: my mother was buying me an eraser in the image of the dog I had wanted so that I would forget all about my unfulfilled desire. I, on the other hand, only saw a lovely-looking scented eraser. A beautiful object that I had no intention of using – I would keep it. The next day after school I went off to look for another eraser with a dog’s face on it. I found a green one 22decorated with a husky’s head, in a little tobacconist’s in the same road as the school. This one was apple-scented.

That evening I wrote in my diary: ‘It’s a collection when you have two and are looking for a third.’

That phrase was to become my motto.

23

‘Uncle Edgar’s so embarrassing,’ my mother used to say of her father’s brother with a sigh. Then my father would add a few intentionally incomprehensible words from which I could only make out ‘crazy Aunty Edgar’. It was not until many years later that I understood how kind Uncle Edgar, whom, to my regret, I saw only once or twice a year, had come to have his mental health described in this way, and in the feminine.

‘You’re far more intelligent than your parents, little one,’ Uncle Edgar once whispered to me.