Episode 2.2

Welcome to The Phosphene Catalogue no. # 15022
We see light where others see only darkness.

I hope you don't mind me abusing my curator position, Morwenna:

I'd like to personally invite the reader to a small exhibition at the Mulberry Street Gallery, Whitechapel, this week on the full moon (Friday).

Along with the Gallery's new resident artist, Sarah Porter, we will be presenting some of this year's latest work, as well as a few old favourites.
Come as you are or wish to be - but do bring appropriate footwear to view Sarah's collection, drainage has been a challenge.

The reception begins at 10pm, and Miss Porter and I will say a few words later on.
Please ensure promptness, the gallery will be sealed at midnight.

Side A: Lithocarta

The Catalogue is pleased to present an ancient artefact this week:
An approximately circular stone tablet, measuring 12" in diameter, carved from dark Welsh Dolerite. On the face is what appears to be a star map, but of no recognisable constellations.

Despite the large size, the disk is surprisingly lightweight. This is due to the unusual thinness of the stone - less than half an inch. It is good that the unknown craftsperson was so skilled, as this allowed me to carry it up from deep within our underground vaults to my office for appraisal.

The disk is an astrolabe, its star map is of no constellations that the Catalogue's expert, Anneline Meyer, can find.
The map etched onto the surface of the stone is in the shape of two spirals of regular dots, with two thin rings towards the outer edge.
There is a runic inscription inside the outer two rings, reminiscent of Old Italic scripts, but not matching any that we can find.

I don't believe the stone will be of help in modern-day navigation, though it is quite beautiful.
The proportions are perfect, spiralling out in a golden ratio pattern, a reminder that the codified concepts of form and design we use in our art existed already in the natural world.
Just waiting to be discovered.
Imitated.
And harnessed.

As the astute reader will guess from the low lot number - 102 - this has been in our collection for some time.

Morwenna, I can't find any intake paperwork for this item:
The yellowed slip of card tied to the stone only says, "For your Collection.", in thick scratched pencil.
When did we take this in? Do you have any records, or memory of it? Please fill them in as you type this up, if you do.

The sealed and humidity-controlled vaults are vast here at The Catalogue.
When I first took up the mantle of Curator, I assumed that the most challenging part of the job might be careful provenance research, we are staking our name and reputation on my appraisals after all.
But that was not the case.

I relish many areas of my duties, from meeting with clients here at our Whitechapel Gallery, to, yes, even the late-night paperwork.
We're not just dealing with rare and wondrous items, but with rare and wondrous PEOPLE. It is a pleasure and an honour, dear reader, despite the challenge of The Vaults...

I recall my first day venturing into them: It was a week into my appointment as Curator, and I had exhausted the backlog of paintings that were stacked in my new office, on the first floor of the building, next to the workshop.
I noted the last item that my predecessor, Edith MacKinley, had planned to appraise (Lisanne Van Veld's "Forest Spirit") had not been brought up.

The basement of the Catalogue's East-end building contains our two underground public galleries, and a large iron spiral staircase, big enough for 3 people to walk side-by-side.
The spiral staircase leads down into the vaults below and beyond.

I dropped in on you, Morwenna, that day, to ask for the basement key, do you remember?
I was quite put off when you handed me that enormous rusted keyring, some keys as long as my forearm!
And thank you for the map. That has been extremely informative, though not for navigation.
"Don't get lost." you said. I laughed at the time, but, thinking back, you weren't smiling.

Though the hive of interconnected vaults that The Catalogue sprawls into are all of different sizes and shapes, I imagine having been bought or... otherwise acquired over the years from other building owners, they all have the same layout:
6 freestanding storage racks or shelves arranged approximately hexagonally around a small table.
One door in, one door out.

The racks or shelves, or occasionally easels holding a painting with a white dust sheet over it, vary greatly from room to room, but always set in this hexagonal layout, like a beehive.

On that day, I pushed open the basement door, fighting against the heavy mechanism that kept it closed in case of fire, and flicked on the metal light switch next to it.
I breathed the cold, damp air, waiting as a pair of strip lights struggled to fire. After a full minute, they sputtered on, illuminating the basement in a harsh white light.

This first vault room held 6 head-height bookshelves, facing inwards, with just enough space between them for me to squeeze into the centre of the hexagon.
In the middle was a square, four-legged table made of rough, misshapen wood. Small enough only for a reading desk for one person.
I pressed on, map and keys in hand, out of the hexagon of dark books and to the door at the opposite end of the room.
This was of an entirely different size, shape and era than the one I had first come through: Black metal banding over rough wooden planks barred my way, but one of the large rusted keys fitted and turned in the lock.
I eventually found the artwork I was looking for, but not before getting lost, cold, hungry, and not a little scared - this seems to be the way with the Vaults.

Since that first visit, I've become better at navigating, or, searching for the artwork I want, or perhaps, the Vaults have been more generous in helping me?
I know that sounds strange, but sometimes all it takes is to give up hope of finding what you want, turn back home, and there it is, the thing you need, waiting for you.

The short report Warrick Blackwood has written up for me, unhelpfully concludes that Lithocarta was for "Ritual use in Pre-Christian Druidic practices."
Useless! Whenever historians don't know what a thing was for, they invariably say "ritual use".

Lithocarta is certainly a star map, just not a map of our stars. Our friendly contact at Kings allowed Anneline Meyer to borrow some equipment from one of their chemistry labs, and she has identified the Bluestone as Pembrookshire rock, in Wales.

We at the Catalogue have long suspected that the Northern Celtic community that spans Alba, Cymru, Kernow, Breizh, Eire, and Mannin had inherited Guise knowledge from the peoples that came before them.
There are references to magical gates allowing liminal traversal between these communities, in both Guise literature and in artwork throughout history, if one knows what to look for.

However, the craft that linked the Celtic enclaves seems to have broken at some point in the middle of the first Millennium AD.
Or... perhaps it was deliberately confiscated, hidden away by the same enigmatic, unknown powers that had smiled on them for so long.
The people, now lacking the tools they needed, drifted apart and forgot their old empire.

This map is not of our stars.
But it is of a place very real, and close at hand.

For the right person.
For the right price.

Intermission

Side B: The Stranger

This painting was purchased by the Catalogue directly from the estate sale of the late Duke of Southwark, a member of The Voyagers society.
Though we typically act as broker on behalf of our clients, over the years there have been many opportunities to engage in a little trade ourselves.
Every so often this might be simply a smart purchase, too well-priced to overlook.
Other times perhaps the artwork may be good for our reputation (readers will remember the Netherwood Collection of last year).
But, very occasionally, it is an act of principled preservation.

The owners of The Catalogue expressed an interest in this particular estate sale, and we have many items from it under appraisal in our workshop.

"The Stranger" is the first such example, and we would be very pleased to arrange a viewing in The Bell Room.

I hope you don't mind that I used nearly all of our yearly budget on this haul, Morwenna.
The estate of a prominent member of The Voyagers! It could be a treasure trove of valuable pieces, but also... information.
I found precious little of it in Edinburgh.

You wouldn't have had to pluck me out of that... place if I'd not decided to stay in that ancient city, after I delivered the news to Edie's mum, in Canning St.
She was remarkably calm when I told her, you know.
I mean, we cried together, of course! If the world were fairer, or gentler, or brighter, no parent would have to bear such news.

But she had this... look, in her eyes when she spoke of her daughter.
We started our discussion over tea, at about 4pm when I arrived. We talked about Edie's past, growing up in the city, going to the girl's school there, and especially her talent as an artist, clear even in the early schooldays.
But as dusk fell and tea was swapped for gin, she stopped talking about Edie's past and started talking about her future.
Like she was still with us.
At first, I let her take the conversation in this strange direction out of a sense of pity, not wanting to rob a recently berieved mother of a moment's hopeful fantasy.
But now and then she would stop mid-sentence, as though caught in a lie, and look at me sharply. For a few minutes after one of these moments, she'd go back to talking about her daughter in the past tense.
But invariably the conversation would wind back to the present, or future.
"I'll have to ask Edie about that." she muttered at one point.

The subject of the painting is ordinary at first viewing.
It is a portrait of a rotund gentleman wearing a double-breasted waistcoat, over a dark red cravat with black pin, and a factory building in the background.
The subject's smile is nearly as wide as his whiskers, and he has his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat.

Over the years, some have suggested the man is Lord Wrightson, reformer and industrialist.

A man known by reputation to The Catalogue, and likely to many of our readers.

It is not, however. The round red face only resembles the man in caricature - the moustache is bushy and wide, but that is where I see the resemblance ending.
No.

I think this man was plucked from the artist's imagination - an amalgam of all the factory owners, strikebreakers, and the politicians that help them.

Look.
Closer.

Do you see the dark shape, skulking to the left of the frame?
Something stalks the man.
Indistinct, almost invisible, a deeper darkness in the shadow of the factory.
Not human, certainly.

Extremely wise political commentators have suggested this black mass a metaphor for the huddled masses living and dying in factories all over the world and the revenge the artist wishes them to have.

Again, I believe they have missed the point of this entirely.
That's the terrible beauty of art, people see what they want, or fear, to see.

The artist, Henri Beauchamp, was arrested in 1919, convicted of Arson in Royal Dockyards (effectively treason) and died in prison shortly after.

A few questions in the right places, and to the right people have yielded further information about the artist:
He was a founding member of the Circle of Traversal. A Druidic society that is active to this day, with connections in both London and Paris, if one knows where to look.

Readers may not know the name of The Circle, but have certainly been affected by their work:
The group are known for their support of environmental actions both financial and, occasionally, in direct action.

I have found that Druids, much like artists, understand the interconnectedness of the world. To paint or capture life truly, one must peel back the artificial layers separating human and nature to reveal that there is no distinction.

Never has been.
What harms one, harms all.

The work of Henri's Circle lives on.

CREDITS