Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

The Wolfsons
Fiesole and Florence
1899
They bought train tickets to Florence and fled.
An older couple who spoke a mixture of German and English shared their
compartment. Their name was Wolfson, "Walter and Sally," corrected Sally. "I am American,
Walter comes from Frankfurt, and we live in Florence. Where are you from?"
When Alexandra told them that she came from Georgia Walter excitedly explained that
he had long wanted to visit Georgia to look for Byzantine icons. He was an art dealer. "Oh, I
am the expert and Sally provides the clientele! We buy art in Europe for rich American
collectors. It is a challenging and not unprofitable profession for an art historian."
Walter and Sally owned a villa in Fiesole high above Florence. Sally, in her American
expansiveness, invited Konrad and Alexandra to their house on the spot. They would be much
more comfortable in Fiesole at this time of the year than in hot and noisy Florence.
Alexandra indicated that this was her first visit to Western Europe, they were on their
honeymoon! Sentimental Sally obliged Alexandra to describe the details of their Old Georgian
wedding .
Sally sighed, "Ah, you Europeans are so romantic and know so well how to do things
right! I would have liked such a royal wedding."
Walter frowned and with an accusing tone admonished her. "We had a sumptuous
wedding in Boston, what are you complaining about? And I am not sure who is more romantic,
you or the Europeans."
Alexandra then told Walter of her discovery of the Giorgione at the Accademia. Walter’s
eyes brightened. "Ah Giorgione, a very important man," he said with conviction and delved into
a lecture about the art historical problems of the Tempest. The picture had been painted in
1506 and ever since had remained controversial.
Alexandra remarked that she found the title La Tempesta exceptionally unimaginative, it
did no justice to the three figures shown. Certainly Giorgione must have had more in mind than
painting a thundercloud above a bucolic landscape!
"Gnädige Frau, that is exactly why the art historians named it The Tempest. The experts
cannot agree on Giorgione’s intentions, a nude woman nursing a child and a contemporary
soldier? He had to be an allegory! But whom did he represent? Is he a mythological brigand
who has come to harm her—I admit, he does not look ferocious—or some God in disguise,
who wants to abduct her? But she is nursing a child! This is a very early cinquecento
landscape painting, what was its mythological reference? At this early time only heathen Gods
and Goddesses appeared in the nude!"
Alexandra, puzzled, knitted her brows. "But she is the soldier’s wife! He has returned
home after years of war. The threatening clouds are receding. He sees his child for the first
time. Giorgione painted the woman in the nude to show that peace had finally arrived. Permit
me to say that I cannot understand your interpretative problems, Herr Wolfson."
Wolfson’s face lit up, he waved his open hand towards Alexandra. "Gnädige Frau,
sometimes a woman sees things we art historians do not. Every now and then a woman
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