Object of Virtue: A Novel - Softcover

Nicholson, Nicholas B.A.

 
9780743257831: Object of Virtue: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0743257839 ISBN 13: 9780743257831
Verlag: Touchstone, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

A dazzling debut about the power of family and the pain of betrayal set within Manhattan's Fifth Avenue apartments, the opulent mansions of the new Moscow, and the pre-revolutionary palaces of Saint Petersburg.

Sasha Ozerovsky is a young expert in Russian art at Leighton's, an exclusive Manhattan auction house. When a dealer arrives from Moscow with an exquisite 1913 Fabergé figurine, Sasha immediately recognizes a rare masterpiece. But in the high stakes art world, the price of an object is tied to its history. If Sasha can determine for whom the bejeweled piece was made and where it has been hiding for the past century, its value -- and Sasha's career -- will soar.
But as Sasha moves between New York's high society and Russia's new rich, he discovers that the piece once belonged to his family, and he must face questions about their past that he never dared to ask.
Superbly plotted and evoking the elegance of Russia's gilded age, Object of Virtue is an enthralling tale that explores what happens to a family torn between vanity and virtue.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nicholas B. A. Nicholson is an expert in Russian Decorative Arts. He was a specialist with Christie's Russian Works of Art Department and was the American Coordinating Curator of the blockbuster exhibition "Jewels of the Romanovs: Treasures from the Russian Imperial Court." He lives in New York City. Visit his website at www.nicholasbanicholson.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

Early one January morning, Alexander Ozerovsky drew on his brown suede gloves as he stood near a crowded bus stop. He stared up the stretch of Fifth Avenue north of Ninety-sixth Street and paid no attention to the other New Yorkers who looked at him with interest as they waited for their bus. He stood with them, and yet apart from them at the curb: aloof and impeccably dressed.

Though Sasha (as everyone called him in the Russian manner) was not unusually handsome, he had a physical presence that attracted attention. His clear grey eyes, aquiline features, and perfect posture (the result of years of childhood riding lessons) suggested he was one of New York's elite.

The trees in Central Park had turned brown early that fall, yet some leaves still clung tenaciously to the icy branches. Buses and cars streamed down the avenue, narrowly missing the lake of slush that separated the curb from the middle of the street. Mindful of a fast-approaching car, Sasha stepped back in time to avoid being splashed. The others were not so lucky. Clutching their newspapers and coffee, they jumped back too late, cursing and wet.

As the others grumbled, Sasha continued to look up the avenue, hoping to catch a taxi with its light on. If one came, he would take it, but he would certainly rather walk than ride a crowded bus with damp and unhappy people. He glanced over toward the park again and noticed a homeless man leaning up against a wall. He wore a large tinfoil crown and had a sign that read: "Deposed. Will reign for food." This city is insane, Sasha thought, and emptying his pockets, he walked over to the man and dropped the last of his change into a can placed on the sidewalk.

Checking the rose-gold tank watch that had been a twenty-first birthday present from his grandparents, Sasha realized he was running late. He gave up all hope of finding a cab this grey morning and began to walk. With the long stride that his friends often complained about, he began the mile-long trek to his office, leaving the soaked commuters and the deposed monarch behind.

B B B

Upper Fifth Avenue was familiar to Sasha. He had lived in New York all his life, and his current apartment on East Ninety-seventh Street was only six blocks from the house where he had lived as a child before his mother's death. This morning, however, the walk down Fifth Avenue was a trial. Looking at the buildings he passed, all Sasha could see were the homes of people he could not convince to consign objects for sale at Leighton's Fine Art Auctioneers.

Our sale isn't so bad, Sasha reassured himself as he walked. We have the Fabergé silver tea service and table with silver fittings, which belonged to Grand Duchess Marie, and the silver-gilt fish service. We have the paintings by Serov and Levitan, but we need something else. Something to compete with that damned necklace at Christie's.

Sasha glanced up at the buildings as he passed. 1003 Fifth, he thought. The Travises have that Fabergé salmon pink enameled clock in the form of an egg, but they won't sell. What did Mr. Travis say? He was "waiting for the market to stabilize?" Nonsense. His wife wants to join the board of the Metropolitan Opera, and everyone on that board is a Sotheby's client. She's probably dangling the clock in front of Sotheby's to wriggle her way into the golden horseshoe.

980 Fifth. Not much better there. Madame Joubert kept teasing him with her necklace of miniature Fabergé eggs, but the price she was asking was too high for Sasha -- it involved a weekend he would have to spend alone with her at her villa on the Riviera.

Sasha didn't even bother to look up at 925. Mrs. Lloyd Winthrop had a Fabergé silver service made for Nicholas II's sister Xenia, but every year she decided at the last minute not to sell, wasting everyone's time.

If only he could find something better than that diamond necklace at Christie's -- the necklace that everyone said had belonged to the last Empress of Russia, Alexandra. The press had been fascinated by the enormous glittering stones since it had been announced for sale by Christie's. So fascinated, that it was impossible for Sotheby's or Leighton's to get any attention for their own pieces. It didn't seem to bother anyone in the press that Christie's couldn't actually prove the provenance of the necklace, at this point. It didn't matter. The tragic ghost of Empress Alexandra circled the piece anyway, wringing her imperial hands. The only people who might have any information about the necklace were the Romanov family themselves, and they remained elegantly and conspicuously silent on the entire matter.

For the last seven years Sasha had worked for Leighton's -- New York's premier small auction house -- in the Russian Works of Art department. Despite his youth, he was an acknowledged specialist in the icons, silver, porcelain, jewelry, and ephemera of the Russian Empire. It was, however, his expertise in the works of the imperial court jeweler Karl Fabergé that brought him the respect he craved from his colleagues, and earned his department the millions of dollars it needed every season to stay open.

Sasha looked up at the limestone curtain of buildings along Fifth Avenue. He knew and was related to many of the people who lived behind those windows, but this season his connections had come to nothing. Despite his blood relation to half the aristocratic families of Europe and the few remaining families of old New York, Sasha was failing Leighton's. For the first time, he couldn't bring in anything to compete with Christie's.

From where he stood, Sasha could see a familiar building ten blocks away. The tall, solid 1920s tower known as 839 Fifth stood as it had since he was a child, filled with socialites, philanthropists, and a smattering of the very rich who had popped up like mushrooms in the New York of the 1980s.

Before 839 was built, on its site had stood the last mansion of the Mrs. Astor. The newest of New Yorkers didn't realize they were living at Mrs. Astor's old address, but Sasha's grandparents certainly did when they were accepted into the building in 1937, and Sasha and his father knew it when they took over the apartment after his mother's death and his grandparents decided to move to Greenwich. Sasha wondered if his father was in the city at all. I haven't spoken to him in a month, Sasha thought. I've been too busy even to call my own father.

Sasha had to admit it to himself -- despite his connections and his bloodlines -- his usual sources for Fabergé had completely dried up. The Russian dealers he knew had already been lured to Christie's and Sotheby's with promises of commission reductions he could not afford to offer. Many said they had nothing left to sell. This was the first time the head of his department was counting on him alone to find something incredible, and he wasn't sure he could do it. This is the first sale I won't be able to pull off, Sasha thought, dashing across Fifth Avenue at Seventy-third Street, and walking east toward his office.

B B B

Sasha never ceased to be impressed by the beautiful building that housed Leighton's Fine Art Auctioneers. Designed by McKim, Mead, and White, and built at the turn of the twentieth century for a publishing magnate, the mansion was a copy of a Venetian palazzo. Leighton's galleried and columned facade was one of the greatest in New York, and Sasha glanced up at it, steeling himself for his day.

Inside his department the phones were ringing, and Sasha could see and hear through the glass window into her office that Anne was on the phone, having an agitated conversation with a client and tapping on a silver tureen lid for emphasis.

Dr. Anne Holton was one of the world's...

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Verlag
Touchstone
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0743257839
ISBN 13 
9780743257831
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
302
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Robitussin
https://www.robitussin.com/

Westarpstr. 2
Berlin
Berlin
10779
Deutschland