Oliver laughed. “If she changed her name, she probably changed her birthdate as well, don’t you think?” he said. “Took the opportunity to shave a few years off her age?”

I bit my lip, hopeful that he was right. “What do we do?” I asked, nodding toward the painting.

“I’m going to call an art authenticator I know at the museum in Greenville to see if he can take a drive up here to give us his take on this,” Oliver said. “We don’t dare go public with this without knowing for sure.”

“Do you have any doubt?”

“I’ll be shocked if it isn’t,” he said, “but I’m not an authenticator.”

“Is there any chance Judith Shipley’s coming to the opening?” I asked. My heart was in my throat at the thought of meeting her, but she was ninety-six—or one hundred—years old, and she lived in New York. Very unlikely.

“I don’t think so,” Oliver said. “Lisa said only a couple of the artists in Jesse’s collection can make it. The majority are dead, and a lot of the others are elderly or live too far away.”

I stared at the painting. “We have to get her here.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“I’ll call her … Try to see if there’s any chance … But I can’t ask her outright if she’s Anna, can I? That might scare her into a heart attack.”

“And she might not be Anna, Morgan,” Oliver said. “Let’s not get our hopes up too high.” He nodded toward Daisy Chain again. “We may just be seeing what we want to see.”

Chapter 63

Chapter 63

From the wall text next to Judith Shipley’s painting Daisy Chain:

Daisy Chain (mid-80s) oil

Judith Shipley

June 7, 1922–

Little is known about Judith Shipley’s early life or formal art education. Her birthplace is also unknown. Although she spent her early adulthood in New York City, Shipley was never part of the New York school of experimental artists, preferring the dramatic realism of other New York painters of the era such as that of her contemporary, Jesse Jameson Williams. Shipley found her own acclaim in the late fifties to the late eighties, and many of her vibrant paintings from that period are displayed in museums and galleries around the world. Her work can be a puzzle for the curious viewer, as she always hides an iris somewhere in her paintings in honor of her late mother, Iris.

Daisy Chain was a gift from the artist to Jesse Jameson Williams in 1988.

Private life: In 1952, Shipley married her agent Max Enterhoff (1921–1999). They had one daughter, Debra, who died in 2014. Shipley lives in New York City, where she and her granddaughter maintain an atelier, training new artists.

Chapter 64

Chapter 64