Episode 1.1

Script

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Introduction

Welcome to The Phosphene Catalogue no. #14995
We see light where others see only darkness.

We are grateful to readers for their patience with the missing issue last week, the first one in the history of this publication, due to the disappearance of the previous curator, Edith MacKinley.

My name is Jude Francis-Sharp, and I have stepped in, to continue to provide your illustrious service.

The reader will forgive me a small introduction, I hope:
I studied fine art in Paris, and maintain my own modest studio and gallery here in London.
I have been a subscriber to the Catalogue for many years, as are many of my colleagues and friends. I live with several other artists, and we regularly delight in reading the descriptions of the wondrous items in the Catalogue to each other, all quite out of our price range!

I am thrilled now be on the other side of the page, so to speak, though I wish it were under happier circumstances.

We all wish Curator Edith MacKinley a swift and safe return.

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Side A: Cunning Woman

Lot No. 7112. "Cunning Woman", Artist Unknown, c. 1800s. A small statue in granite and tin.

This piece is an effigy of glittering stone, with shining metal highlights that wonderfully catch any glimmer falling into it and reflect brilliant starlight.

Our client had attempted to put this statue up for auction at Sotheby's but had been given a very pessimistic estimate by London's "foremost" auction house.

I can understand why that might have been, the piece is modest, only 14in high on a plinth of what looks to be wood torn from a tea box or similar contemporary packing crate.
Underneath there is a brand burnt in to the thin wood, of a ship with black sails.
I think I have seen this mark before...

Morwenna: Thank you for typing this up for me, I've never had a secretary before, I hope I'm not asking too much of you!
Would you please arrange with Warrick Blackwood to discuss this dark ship brand with me, you have my schedule, I believe?
I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing here, apart from appraising the artwork for next week.
The curator's office is in such a mess!
I've not had a chance to tidy up since I received the telephone call from The Catalogue this morning, asking after Edith, and then asking me to cover in the same call!
Thank you again.

No words or identifiable company name are to be found, a shame, as this would have made dating this piece easier.
No doubt, this is why Sotheby's could not give the value, only offering to sell it as a nice-looking thing of unknown provenance.

Luckily for you, dear reader, they see darkness, but we see light.

Cunning Woman is roughly cut from Cornish granite.
Of that, we can be certain.
We have a friend at King's College who was able to chemically prove this, at their laboratory, out of hours.

Most interestingly for our organisation, and likely for our clients, is the glinting of crushed phoenix feathers visible best by moonlight, in the tin detailing, a quintessentially Cornish technique dating back to pre-Roman times.

The squat figure of the woman is presented nearly in abstract. The unknown sculptor has taken a simple block of granite, seemingly straight from the quarry, and made the absolute minimum number of chisel strokes to reveal the woman inside the speckled rock.

While the stone is simple, though striking, in design, the tin detailing around the woman's hands, eyes, and particularly, her open mouth with tiny teeth visible, is astonishing.
The tin, gleaming brighter than silver under the unforgiving strip-lights of our warehouse, seems almost fused with the rock.
There is no raised edge of finely detailed tin inlay, nor has it been poured into a channel cut into the granite, or otherwise.

Running my thumbs carefully over the tin reveals no imperfection whatsoever - the artist, whoever that may be (and we have tried unsuccessfully to hunt them down), has somehow painted the stone with tin, and it has soaked into the very rock.

This lost technique is only extant in a few statues, due to most examples being destroyed in the dissolution of the Monasteries.

I would advise interested buyers to contact their banking agent and provide a letter of credit so that the transfer arrangements may be made in short order after the closing of bidding.
As usual in these high-value items, we make our in-house master jeweller available to those clients wishing to pay in gold.

Cunning woman was easy for me to find in our warehouse, despite The Catalogue's underground warren of tunnels and interconnected cellars.

The moment the heavy vault door closed behind me, I did not need the inscrutable leather map, nor the lot number.
Despite my current inexperience navigating the cyclopean labyrinth, I simply needed to follow my ears.

I first took the sound to be London street traffic, just a few feet above the ceiling, or perhaps one of the interconnected waterways that cause us problems with humidity.
(Fear not, reader, we have taken every precaution against natural and unnatural disaster).

As I walked closer to the thick metal barred section that was my goal, I could make out words, but not in a language I could speak.
Perhaps in a language few people speak anymore.

Heavy metal key in hand, and rounding a moss-covered foundation stone, I saw her, tin features gleaming in the white neon light, and discovered the source of the ethereal sound.

Reader, she sings!

Intermission

Hi folks, Tris here, writer of The Phosphene Catalogue.
Thank you so much for listening to our show!
It's an independent production with just Wolfie and I working on it, and so you bet we have a Patreon with cool perks for you:

Our membership starts at just 3 pounds a month, and for your support you'll get access to early episodes ahead of the public feed, behind-the-scenes updates direct from us and access to a private Discord channel on my server.

If you would like to support us more, higher tiers can get access to exclusive bonus episodes, high-resolution concept art and other digital artefacts, free stuff from our store and even your name in the credits.

No matter how you support us, even if it's just spreading the word to your friends, thank you so much for making the show possible, I have great plans for season 2 and beyond!

OK, let me turn over this cassette.

Side B: Forest Spirit

Lot No. 3988. "Forest Spirit", Lisanne Van Veld. 1930. Oil on canvas, frame missing.

The painting unrolls to a 4-foot square and I believe would benefit from hanging in a room with high ceilings, panelled in dark wood.

Looking at the scene itself, it is a lush, green forest clearing, framed left and right by a deeply detailed canopy, with a glimpse of woodland creatures starting in the undergrowth.
Delicate insects hang gently in the air, suggesting to me a comforting humidity and stillness that only the deep forest can provide.

The detail of the brush strokes is wonderfully intricate.
When you view this marvellous example of dutch realism, please lean close to the canvas and examine the artist's technique for yourself.

Through a gap in the treeline, an almost horizontal slash of light floods the scene.
Van Veld has captured the honey-coloured warming light of a late spring sunrise with almost photorealistic talent.

Indeed, the light ITSELF is the subject of this painting, not the canopy, seemingly miles overhead, nor the clearing, nor the empty eye sockets of the skull in the bottom right.

This is not a cheap memento mori, reminding the viewer that all one day will perish, it tells us that when we do, the forest will not care.

I find myself... staring into that light. It draws the eye from all parts of the scene, as a moth to flame, as a parched horse to water, and a wolf to the hunt.
It pours out of the fabric of the canvas, spilling on to the floor, sending shafts of gold up to the ceiling, so hot it nearly burns my hands when holding it, despite my pristine cotton gloves.

Pause for contemplation, then whisper:

There is something written in pencil on the reverse of the canvas.
Just above the bottom edge, in block capitals.
Misspelled, uneven, the pressure of the letters almost breaking the brittle varnish on the face.

It reads: "To see the sights beyond the veil, you must close your eyes."

I have heard that expression before.

My housemate Josephine Croft said it, one quiet evening a month or so ago, while a few of my fellow Rossetti House denizens and I were weathering an unusually strong autumn storm.
The wind and the rain had cancelled most of our plans, and we had lit the fire and closed the curtains, trying to shut out the unkind weather outside.

Josephine and David Isaac were sitting together on the sofa, as they often did.
They had both planned to go out, and were dressed in black dinner jackets, white wing-collar dress shirts with a cotton weave, and black bow ties.

Well, one of them wore a tie, Josephine Croft's lay forgotten on the coffee table in front of them.
She regularly complained that this formal style really didn't suit her, and would much rather be in a cocktail dress, but couldn't wear what she wanted, for obvious reasons.

"But why ever not?" she had said to David Isaac, playfully reclining on the sofa and hooking a jet-black trouser leg over David Isaac's lap.

David Isaac sat up straight, pushing her leg off, and looking around at the room, furtively.
I don't know why, it was only Rachel Stephenson, Ola Hawthorne, and me in the room, and we didn't care what they did.

David lowered his voice and hissed,
"You don't know him like I do, he'll never allow it, I'll think of another way."

Josephine Croft stopped smiling, collected her tie and stood facing David Isaac, then said the words,
"To see the sights beyond the veil, you must close your eyes."

And walked from the room, slamming the heavy mahogany lounge door behind her.

I must ask her where she read that.

This is not "Forest Spirit". Now that I come to think of it, I have seen the original hanging in the South Wing of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
This isn't even a copy, it is mistitled.
Who did the intake paperwork?

The documentation The Phosphene Catalogue received with this painting suggests that the work would have been framed in a dark mahogany, but the frame is now entirely missing. The edges of the canvas show the tell-tale marks of it having been inexpertly cut out from the frame.

It is not the nature of this establishment to pry into the affairs of its clients, nor do we take responsibility for the veracity of their claims.
Those are for our buyer to decide upon, by prior appointment, at our showroom in Whitechapel.

My role as both curator and compiler is to describe the items as I see them here in our warehouse.
The Catalogue specialises in those items that cannot be sold at other auction houses: Paintings of lost origin, statues that are "too grotesque" for public display, and books better left unread.

back to business

Given the age, lack of history and nature of this canvas, I believe it was part of the Netherwood Hoard, looted last year, in November of 1975.

Why is there no client name for #3988?
sigh
Typical!
Morwenna, you'd better not put most of this in the catalogue when you write it all up.

OK, now, what's next?

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Credits

The Phosphene Catalogue is a NAMTAO production.
The voice of Jude Francis-Sharp is Wolfie Thorns,
The show is written and produced by me, Tris Oaten.

For links to our merch store, the music, and mastodon account, check out the podcast's website,
https://phosphenecatalogue.com
To become a patron of the arts and get bonus episodes and other perks, it would be very kind of you to support us at
patreon.com/phosphenecatalogue

Thank you so much for listening,
See you next time.