MovieChat Forums > La migliore offerta (2014) Discussion > Confused about Mrs. Duraine and the pain...

Confused about Mrs. Duraine and the painting

posted 9 years ago by kingpinmultimedia
2 replies | jump to latest

In the opening scene, Virgil is with Mrs. Duraine and two of her friends, looking over furniture and objects from an estate. When he picks up the moldy board, Mrs. Duraine comments, "I don't remember that object." So, I'm assuming the estate belongs to her. Virgil says if she will give him the moldy board as a gift he will accept it. A few scenes later, he's with the restorer in her lab and Mrs. Duraine isn't there, but her two friends are. This is when he announces the painting is a fake by Valiente, of whom Mrs. Duraine just happens to have the largest collection. So why did Mrs. Duraine have to buy back the painting that came from her estate in the first place? I know this is a scam by Virgil, but I just can't work out all of the details. Can anyone help?

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[–] LilyDaleLady 9 years ago

I didn't get it either. If she gave him the moldy board, it was HIS. There is no way you could look at a moldy board like that and just "know" a priceless painting is under the mold. There was no evidence of a painting until the art restorer removed all the mold.

Once it was his, why would he even SHOW it to Mrs. Duraine OR her friends? It was just making for trouble later on, when he auctioned it off and tried to sell it to Billy as a shill purchase.

BTW: this is a real, very famous painting in a museum (and never was moldy). I wonder why they used known, famous paintings instead of imaginary ones.

[–] morganseer 9 years ago

I wonder if she failed to even recognize the now clean painting as having come from her own collection?