“You know Penny is out there competing and beating people now, riding astride.”
“I do. Some people just have it, you know? Look at Ellie Wood Baxter, still rides at ninety-nine. She’s mostly blind, still going. Flawless on a horse, as are the ladies we are discussing. Kay Blassic, Betty Oare. Effortless, and then you think about sidesaddle. They say Phyllis Longworth, and Lady Astor, her sister, were unbelievable on a horse, sidesaddle.”
“Or the Empress of Austria, Sissy,” Ms. Pfeiffer added. “Again, think of the politics and the pressure.”
“Do you have any thoughts about who’s behind all these crimes? I’ve been thinking all this is connected to the value of Munnings’s work.” Sister folded her hands in her lap, the space was conducive to quiet and thought.
“In 2016 Sotheby’s auctioned Winter Sunshine: Huntsman by a Covert, which was painted in 1913. Not an especially large work, it went for two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. The sidesaddle paintings that have been stolen…well, all three of them, the bidding would begin above that. And if sold on the black market, it wouldn’t be any less.”
“Is it possible some obsessed person of wealth would pay more?” Sister queried.
“I suppose if you have billions, what’s a million or two? We’ve talked about this here, who of today’s billionaires would have the acumen to know Munnings? It’s a bit like interior decorating. Few of the new billionaires would know who Nancy Lancaster was, Nancy Astor’s niece.”
“Colefax and Fowler.” Sister named the great interior decorating company that rose to great prominence after World War I and is still going today. The impetus for this success was Nancy Lancaster.
“It’s an instantly recognizable look but I am willing to bet not one of these wealthy people would know who Stéphane Boudin was, the legendary decorator of Maison Jansen.”
“They have wealth but no breeding. I know that’s not a nice thing to say but in the old days those with great resources had a trained aesthetic sense. Your vice chairman, Jacqueline Mars, apart from being generous, has an exquisite sense of the arts. Well, your entire board of directors is exceptional.”
“Sister, most museums do have glorious boards, as does the New York Public Library, but few members are even in their forties. My fear is when they go, who will be there to take up the reins?”
“Ms. Pfeiffer, regardless of the institution, that’s a concern. I feel it’s as though someone put the film of history backward on the projector.”
“Ah, interesting way to put it. By the way, please call me Claudia. Okay, back to the Munnings. Only Munnings.”
“Is it possibly a family relation? Someone who feels cut out of his work?”
“There’s never been any criticism from that quarter, and Violet, his wife, was above reproach. A good marriage, I think. No outside children. No one seething at being left out of wills, at least where art is concerned. His first wife, Florence Carter-Wood, committed suicide in 1914 after two years of marriage. No issue there either.”
“Let me try another tack. Before women had the vote in England, remember the woman, Emily Wilding Davison, who threw herself in front of the king’s horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby? She was killed. There have always been fanatics and often their sacrifices provoke others to make smaller ones. Women got the vote in England in 1928. It’s only been a hundred years here. Is it possible this is some sort of feminist motivation? Sidesaddle as an emblem of distorting the female body for male pleasure? I know I’m grasping at straws, but to have three thefts of major art in less than two weeks and then Delores Buckingham’s murder, I’m trying to think of all manner of things. Sidesaddle may not be the key except for rarity. Munnings painted fewer of them than his other paintings, as fewer and fewer women rode sidesaddle as he aged and, well, it is making a comeback, but how many hunts have active ladies who ride sidesaddle?”
“Not many. A lady might do so for one of the High Holy Days but it’s not like old times. I still think the key is the value.”
“It makes the most sense,” Sister agreed. “You must know who owns Munnings’s paintings, the works in private hands.”
“We do as does Turner Reuter at Red Fox Fine Art. Some are in our country on the East Coast, as you would expect. There is a massive Munnings in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Interestingly enough, a few great corporations own Stubbs’s work but not Munnings’s. And there is The Munnings Art Museum in England, of course.”
“Those extra decades must add a patina.” Sister smiled. “Has anyone expressed concern?”
“Curiosity more than concern, because the people we know who own the great hunting paintings, or racing paintings from even the early eighteenth century, feel secure. As this has been focused on sidesaddle, no one has pressed the panic button.”
“And I assume none of the sidesaddle ladies including the ladies of Colonial Williamsburg have been discomfited, stalked, stuff like that?”
“Not that I know.” Ms. Pfeiffer asked Sister, “Have you ever ridden sidesaddle?”
“Yes. When I was young I tried. I liked it but thought I could do better astride. I’ve taken up so much of your time. Let me let you get back to work. You’ve been very generous.”
“It’s always a pleasure to see you. When you come up for the fly-fishing exhibit, call me. I’ll take you through it. You must come, you know. Your father would want you to.” She smiled broadly.
“Yes, he would.”
Ms. Pfeiffer walked Sister to her car, which she’d actually washed, given that she was driving to Middleburg. Even though there was mud in Middleburg, she wanted to drive in a clean car, or as clean as it could be in this weather.
Sister opened the door and Ms. Pfeiffer said, “There is a Side-Saddle Chase Foundation. You could call them.”
“Thank you for reminding me. You all worked with them for the horsemanship roundtable, right?”
“Did. It’s the only thing I can think of and I’m sure you spoke to Nancy Bedford at the Museum of Hounds and Hunting?”
“I did. Everyone is in agreement that the value of the stolen works is enormous. Other than that, well, we are all outfoxed, forgive the expression.”
Driving the two and a half hours home, Sister turned over in her head all they had discussed. The only thought she had was she should reread Sir Alfred Munnings’s three volumes of autobiography. He mentioned the sidesaddle paintings. Perhaps there is a running thread. It occurred to her as she reached Culpeper, the mountains visible before her on the right, that Delores Buckingham rode sidesaddle at Piedmont Hunt in the late forties. Her maiden name was LeCoq, she married Buckingham, moved to Lexington. Sister met Delores first when the woman was in her sixties, no longer riding sidesaddle but riding astride. She pulled over, dialed Jane Winegardner.
“O.J., I was just up at the National Sporting Library and Museum to talk about the ‘Sidesaddle’ exhibit they had last year and am driving home; I’m pulled over on 29. Anyway, Delores rode sidesaddle in the late 1940s and 1950s.”
“That came out in the Lexington newspaper. I never saw her ride sidesaddle.” She paused. “No leads. Catherine Clay-Neal, a member at Woodford Hunt before we merged with Long Run, rode and still sometimes does ride sidesaddle. I asked her. She is as confused as the rest of us and she runs the Headley-Whitney Museum. It is possible Delores was killed for another reason.”
“It is.”
O.J. replied, “It’s my understanding that most murders are solved pretty quickly if they are to be solved. You know, the killer is standing there or has blood in his car. So, let me say this,” she said, using one of her expressions. “No one knows anything. The first theft was in your territory. It might not be such a good idea to be obvious in your questions. There must be a great deal of money at stake. Who is to say that this person isn’t someone you know or at least in Virginia? Think of Virginia’s coastline. Pretty easy to sneak something out of the country using the Atlantic. No planes. Just a thought.”