That gives a me thought.
If you made a coil by wrapping many turns of wire around an iron core (nail) you might be able to detect the electric field by swiping the coil close to the wire. That should give a small pulse of voltage, but I don't know how hard it would be to get a readily detectable voltage using a standard voltmeter.
The best core shape would probably be a U with the ends of the U just wide enough to pass the wire and then swipe the wire through the center of the U.