Date: July ‘25
Time: 7:05 PM – 11:15 PM
Location: The Green Room, Pimlico Wilde East
Attendees:
• Julian Molyneux (Chair, Pimlico Wilde)
• Fiona d’Abernon (Co-Founder; Acting Secretary)
• Lord E. Northcote
• Dr. Xanthe Lorrimer (Cultural Historian)
• Hugo Van Steyn
• India Trelawney (Fashion Archivist)
• Max Duclos (Collector)
• Conrad Smithe (Full Member)
• Pascal (Afghan hound)
Book Discussed:
Death in Ultramarine: A Botticelli Mystery in Three Pigments by Catriona Bellamy-Woodhouse (Privately printed, 1987; edition of 2200, illustrated with original pigment charts, each copy accompanied by a small phial of ground lapis).
1. Opening Remarks
Molyneux introduced the book as “half technical treatise, half exciting whodunnit,” noting the rarity of works that can switch from analysing the cost of cinnabar in Renaissance Florence to a chase scene through the Uffizi without jarring. He suggested Bellamy-Woodhouse “has the soul of a connoisseur and the instincts of a pulp novelist.”
2. Discussion Summary
• Dr. Lorrimer admired the detailed breakdown of Botticelli’s palette, particularly the “Chromatic Appendix,” but found the murder plot “wildly implausible,” adding, “Even Vasari wouldn’t have put this unlikely stuff in his Lives.”
• India Trelawney thought the interplay between pigment lore and narrative tension “a triumph,” praising the heroine’s habit of storing forensic evidence in repurposed paint pots. She noted that the book’s design—linen boards the shade of weathered fresco plaster—was “spot on.”
• Lord Northcote was especially taken with Chapter 7’s reconstruction of the 1478 shipment of lapis from Badakhshan to Venezia, calling it “more thrilling than the murder itself.” He did, however, lament the “gratuitous gondola chase,” pointing out Botticelli “rarely travelled, let alone at those sort of speeds.”
• Hugo Van Steyn defended the melodrama, arguing that “art history needs more peril.” He claimed the book’s climactic poisoning with arsenic green was “perfectly plausible” and cited two historical precedents.
• Max Duclos grumbled that the author’s forensic pigment analysis could have stood alone as a monograph: “The murder felt like scaffolding left up after the building’s finished.”
• Conrad Smithe countered that the structural oddness was the point: “It’s a trompe-l’œil of genres—half fresco, half crime scene.”
• Fiona d’Abernon confessed that she laughed aloud at the scene in which the prime suspect tries to flush cochineal dye down a convent well, tinting the water supply pink for weeks.
3. Artworks & Objects on View
• Three microscopic pigment cross-sections from Botticelli’s Primavera (on loan in photographic form from a Florentine lab)
• A late 19th-century artist’s paintbox containing vermilion, orpiment, and malachite chips
• Contemporary work: Murder in Cobalt by Elodie Varn – abstract in ultramarine tempera, with faint hand-written confession embedded under glaze
4. Refreshments
• Aperitif: “The Primavera” – prosecco, violet syrup, and a drop of saffron tincture
• Canapés: saffron arancini, bruschetta with anchovy and preserved lemon, and tiny almond cakes dusted in “edible lapis” (blue spirulina)
• Main wine: Chianti Classico Riserva 2019
• Dessert: blood orange granita served in chilled ceramic bowls painted in imitation majolica
5. Other Business
• Next Book: The Cartographer’s Melancholy by Jeroen van Holt, proposed by Lorrimer, seconded by Smithe.
• Molyneux announced that Pimlico Wilde would host a one-night display of pigment samples mentioned in Bellamy-Woodhouse’s book, including natural ultramarine, lead-tin yellow, and verdigris (sealed for safety).
• General agreement that Death in Ultramarine was “both better and worse” than expected, which was taken as a compliment.
6. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 11:15 PM, after members attempted—unsuccessfully—to determine whether the phials of lapis accompanying each copy of the book were genuine or cunningly dyed chalk. Pascal appeared indifferent.
Fiona d’Abernon
Acting Secretary
Mayfair Book Groupette
