“Art to impart,
Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler;
Sculpture donated; museum is set.
Claudia, Jamie
Sort out mixed-up files;
Work’s authentication
Is challenge well-Met.”
The 12 April 2024 Twitter poem continued the theme of National Library Week, with this day’s poem providing an overview of 1968’s Newbery-Award-winning novel: E. L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
“Art to impart, /
Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; /
Sculpture donated; museum is set.”
This novel centers around a sculpture donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by one Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. She has bought it at auction for a small price, and the museum puts it on display, highlighting a key question: whether it might actually be the work of Michelangelo.
(It was fascinating to learn that Konigsburg drew inspiration from a real-life case in the late 1960s, in which a bust purchased by the museum for under $250 was ultimately attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.)
“Claudia, Jamie /
Sort out mixed-up files; /
Work’s authentication /
Is challenge well-Met.”
Siblings Claudia and Jamie Kincaid are the main characters; they have run away from their elementary-school existence to live at the museum, and they become aware of the mystery of the statue’s origins. Near the novel’s close, they travel to visit Mrs. Frankweiler, and they investigate her “mixed-up files,” which include the provenance conclusively linking the statue to Michelangelo, allowing the “work’s authentication.” The challenge is both well-met (since they solve the mystery) and “well-Met” (set primarily in the famous museum).
This has long been a favorite book. I learned more recently that Konigsburg worked as a chemist for several years before she turned to writing, and I see several interesting links there, throughout the novel. Certainly, the processes of art authentication often overlap with scientific investigation. More generally, the climactic office scene (in which Claudia and Jamie encounter the files themselves) relies on close observation, creative thinking, and the ability to realize a flash of illumination when it arrives: all key to both science and art.
Chemphasis 