The soft stage whispers of the Louvre were silenced by a sharp inhalation that invaded the space. Famous art curator, Madame Delacroix, was frozen and her eyes were too wide for incredulity. The absolutely iconic “Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh-the showpiece of the gallery-was gone.
It brought a certain panic to the place. The hall was closed down and a detective team was brought over to inspect this brazen theft. Among them was Detective Henri Duval-a man with a keen mind and absolute dedication. He loved art, like many others, and even found himself intrigued by this mystery.
Having already started his inquiry, Duval finds a set of cryptic clues left behind by the thief: a note, an odd symbol etched into the glass case, and red paint drops trailing into open space from the empty frame. The messages pointed at a hidden meaning-only the thief knew that secret language.
Continuing to dig, Duval unearthed the world of art forgery and illegal art trade, and found a secret network of underground, wherein people are very much involved in the art world for some self-interest motive where everyone has his motive and secrets. The list of suspects included an art trader notorious, a collector reclusive, and an artist revengeful.
Indeed, the trail took him along a dropped crumb of bread which led him to a secret atelier tucked deep in the heart of Paris. There, in the recesses of this cubbyhole, he found forgeries upon forgeries of the masterpieces he loved to view, from nearly perfect reproductions of “Starry Night.” The room belonged to a young, enigmatic artist named Pierre Moreau, a man who was just so obsessed with the works of Van Gogh.
This is when Duval finally met with Moreau. It was here that he came to understand that it was not for the money but to pay some sort of respect to the great artist. As Moreau had worked out everything, the whole crime, to perfection, he wanted a mark in the art world. In doing so, he thought that taking the original would be the way to equate his work to this stature of reverence.
It was the dramatic confrontation wherein Moreau was caught by Duval and the masterpiece stolen back. Mystery of the disappearance of Van Gogh was now solved and would leave a toll behind in the minds of men. It shook the very foundations of the art world-exposed its vulnerabilities and showed how people were ready to go to extreme measures for a moment of fame and fortune.
Comments