Town & Country USA – September 2019

72 SEPTEMBER 2019 | TOWNANDCOUNTRYMAG.COM

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arel Fabritius’s 1654 painting The Gold-

finch is safe today in the Netherlands,

but its fictional counterpart—the

namesake of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize–

winning novel from 2013 and its big screen

adaptation, out this month—isn’t so lucky.

In the film, directed by John Crowley and

starring Nicole Kidman and Ansel Elgort,

The Goldfinch is hanging in the Metropolitan

Museum of Art (actually a warehouse in Yon-

kers stocked with recreations of Old Masters

and designed to look like the Met) when an

explosion levels the building and the film’s

protagonist, a young man named Theo, smug-

gles the painting out of the rubble.

Over the course of the movie, Theo stuffs

The Goldfinch into bags, hauls it across the

country, hides it behind his bed, and stashes

it in a storage locker. It’s no way to treat a

masterpiece, says Robin Starr, the director of

American and European works of art at the

Skinner auction house.

“Paintings like what people like,” Starr says.

“They want a consistent room temperature

experience. Seventy-two degrees is perfect.”

And while she doesn’t recommend walking

out of a museum with a painting under your

arm, she says that if you do, there are some

important things to keep in mind. Never

wrap a painting in newspaper (too acidic;

try a T-shirt instead), don’t store it in an attic

or basement (temperature changes can lead

to cracking), and never steal a piece without

also taking its frame. “That frame is going

to help protect the painting,” she says. “It’s

there to help present the artwork, but it’s

also a bumper to keep away fingers or flying

champagne corks.”

How to

STEAL a

Masterpiece

Lessons in (hypothetical) art

theft from the month’s most

anticipated movie. BY ADAM RATHE

The Goldfinch, by Carel Fabritius

“Paintings like what

people like. They want

a consistent room

temperature experience.

Seventy-two

degrees is perfect.”

ROBIN STARR, director of American and

European art at the Skinner auction house

“You should never wrap

an artwork in newspaper.

You don’t want anything

acidic rubbing against

it. A cotton T-shirt

wouldn’t be a bad move.”

ROBIN STARR

“I find myself

captivated by Georges

de La Tour’s T h e

Fortune-Teller. It’s an

extraordinary painting.”

MAX HOLLEIN, director of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, on which of the

Met’s paintings he’d most like to live with.