A very long investigative piece on the battle between French art historians Marc Restellini, who was doing a catalogue raisonné supported by the powerful Pace Wildenstein gallery, and Christian Parisot, who inherited from Modigliani’s daughter the droit morale to authenticate works by the artist. This story was intense, old-school journalism as I tried to assess the truths among a flurry of verbal assaults between the subjects of my story. There was no guarantee that even a masterful catalogue raisonné by Restellini would quiet the querulous Modigliani milieu. “I don’t think he was the wrong man for the task,” says Michael Findlay of New York’s Acquavella Galleries. “But I guarantee he will have a lot of rocks thrown at him when his book finally comes out. When the stakes are so high, venality runs rife.”
