BOOK REVIEW/REPORT from Missy.
For forty years Lucas and M lived almost as husband and wife and he acted as stepfather to her only son, Eugene. By the 1880's some of their friends called Octavia Josephine Marchand "Mrs. Lucas." He felt if he left her nothing it would break her heart, but then she burned up in a fire in Lucas' Paris apartment, which was right next door to the one he rented for her, and thousands of art objects escaped - as did he. Lucas was shattered and shocked by the sudden death of M, but when she died in 1909, the question was what, if anything would go to Eugene. Eugene, who was married and had several children, was gifted the country house and some furnishings. George Lucas signed his last will on October 23rd, 1909. By this time he was a well known and respected collector of art and had acted as an agent for wealthy people who collected. It was understood his health was failing and his art collection was wanted by others.
His niece Bertha Lucas seemed to head up a plot, along with his clients Walters and Frick, to get the collection to Baltimore. Bertha wanted to be the principal beneficiary of his estate and she was a high society American who wrote a column for the newspaper, the Baltimore Sun. She first visited Lucas, who had lived in France for decades and had never returned to America, in May of 1896. When it came to the love of art, she was his kindred spirit and not just his kin, but according to the author, Stanley Mazaroff, in his book 'A Paris Life - A Baltimore Treasure,' she may have started stealing for herself.
By 1906 Lucas was bedridden with arthritis and Frick and Bertha Lucas blamed M and his son, ridiculously, for the old man's condition, saying he was neglected. Actually M had her own health issues and the couple were increasingly unable to care for each other.
In the Chapter of the book called 'The Final Years" Mazaroff writes that Frick and Bertha Lucas considered M "a hopelessly helpless woman who was incapable of rendering him (Lucas) any services." (page 155). They also didn't like Lucas' support of Eugene. Though his mother and Lucas had never married, he certainly had long been treated as a stepson.
Lucas also died in 1909, just a couple months after he signed his last will.
In the end, the collection went to Baltimore.
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