Artifact Read Online Free PDF Page B

absorbed in the photo he forgot about his.
    I know the annoyance of being interrupted while contemplating your research. Letting the gears in your mind turn over facts that don’t mean much until you’ve put them together to create meaning out of them. I forced myself to sit back and sip my coffee to give Lane time to think.
    “If the bracelet in this photograph is real,” he said, tapping on the edge of the photo, “then this is a really big deal.”
    “I got that,” I said. “You were going to tell me why.”
    “Where did you find this?”
    “It’s from a friend.”
    He stared at me, waiting for more.
    “Someone gave it to me,” I said. “I don’t know where it came from. I came to see Michael to figure that out. Why is it such a big deal?”
    “Like I said before,” he said slowly, holding my gaze as he spoke. “It’s apocryphal. It doesn’t actually exist.”
    “Then how did you recognize it?”
    “It only exists as an idea ,” Lane said. “In artwork.”
    “You’ve seen this bracelet in artwork,” I repeated dumbly.
    “It’s very distinctive. This cut of the ruby, and the setting….”
    He trailed off, his gaze drawn back to the photograph.
    I cleared my throat after a few seconds of silence. He looked back up at me with an arched eyebrow.
    “Artists sometimes take liberties in artistic renderings like paintings and sculptures,” he said. “I’m talking specifically about Indian royal court paintings here, where artists were hired to depict the life of royal families in India. It’s called Selective Realism.”
    “You mean making someone more or less attractive depending on if the painter liked them or not. Like how artists made Richard III look like a hunchback.”
    “Sort of,” he said. “But it’s more than that. Sometimes paintings were purposefully misleading representations to show symbols of wealth. Or the painter thought his painting looked more aesthetically pleasing than the scene that existed in front of him. Who was going to argue with the result?”
    “But surely there are ways to tell what’s a true representation and what’s not. Other historical documents—”
    “Of course,” Lane said. “There are lots of other historical sources to shed light on what’s real versus what was the artist’s imagination. Portraits are often fairly accurate. And there are other records that are used to determine historical accuracy. For example, Jahangir, a Mughal ruler in the early 1600s—”
    “I know who Jahangir is. He played a role in helping establish the East India Company, granting them trading privileges in exchange for prestigious European goods.” I paused as Lane’s expression changed. Was he surprised I knew so much about Indian history?
    “I’m not here for an Indian history lesson,” I said. I tapped my finger on the photograph. “Right now I’m interested in this piece.”
    “I’m going somewhere with this.” Lane paused to take a sip of coffee, his expression unreadable as he looked across the desk at me. “Jahangir had all sorts of fanciful paintings commissioned that showed his power. One famous painting shows King James of England and a Turkish emperor both visiting Jahangir’s court.”
    “They did?”
    “No,” Lane said. “That’s the point. It never happened. It’s painted like that. And the piece in your photo. I know I’ve seen it—the intact version—in a painting before.”
    “That Jahangir commissioned.”
    “Possibly.” He shifted in his chair. “I’m not sure. Definitely a Mughal painting, though. I think. Look, this isn’t something I come across every day. But I’ve studied this subject.” He indicated the books around us. “I suspect the photo you’ve got shows something that popped up in multiple paintings—before disappearing.”
    “It was stolen,” I mumbled mostly to myself.
    “I don’t mean ‘disappeared’ in that sense. When something like this happens, the prevailing theory is that the artist who