Woman on Fire

Ellis greets his lover, Henri, in their shared apartment in New York. They have been lovers for the past 20 years. Ellis’s wife, Vivienne, knows of the affair, and all three of them have come to terms with it. After some loving banter, Ellis needs Henri to do him a favor. He needs Henri to get in touch with Griffin Freund. Griffin is an art dealer and was an earlier lover of Henri. Ellis and Henri nearly broke up over it, so Henri is unhappy about Ellis’s wish. However, Ellis tells Henri why he needs his help. It is known that Griffin deals in stolen art, so Henri might be able to find out something about Woman on Fire. Henri reluctantly agrees, hoping the painting is worth the risk.

When Margaux looks at Woman on Fire, she remembers her grandfather, Charles de Laurent. Ernst Engel was a friend of his. Another of his friends, Max Kruger, brought Charles the painting for safekeeping from the Nazis. The painting quickly became important to him because it gave Charles’s dying wife peace when she looked at it. Thus, when Helmuth Geisler took the painting, it was particularly painful. However, it is not just for the memory of her grandfather that Margaux likes the painting, but also because she sees herself in the woman.