Customer Reviews

The Lost Painting

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Lost Painting is a book I picked up from a second hand book shop while I was traveling in Ecuador. And I gotta say, I loved this book. Couldn't put it down. I read it in two days straight. So what is this book about? What makes it so good? Well for starters it's a real life mystery involving a lost painting by the great Italian artist Caravaggio. The book starts out giving a brief history of how Caravaggio paintings came to be so sought after, and then delves in to how the painting The Taking of Christ came to be rumoured to have been lost.

The book paints a fascinating portrait of how research is done in the art world to prove, or disprove, the authenticity of works of art. Jonathan Harr does a great job of capturing the pressure people in the art world are under to find the next hidden gem and prove lineage. In doing so, Harr is able to educate the reader on the nuances of how art is tested to determine if the piece in question is indeed done by the said artist.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in real life mystery's. It's a quick read and once you get in to it, the book is very hard to put down.

Récit très sympathique et facile à lire en anglais. Voyage intéressant dans le monde de l'art où des personnes passionnées et colorées partent à la recherche d'un tableau perdu du grand maître Caravaggio. Ceci s'est réellement passé il y a quelques années en Italie et en Irlande. Une agréable lecture où l'on apprend aussi à connaître ce grand artiste.

I was recently in Tuscany and brought The Lost Painting with me. What a pleasure to read. Recommended to anyone interested in art history.

I took this book with me on vacation and read it in a day. It is well-written and quite the page-turner. Caravaggio was a master painter and when a painting of his is found, we all benefit. I highly recommend viewing his paintings in the churches surrounding St. Peter's. The journey is well worth the effort. And do read the book! Whether you like art or not, it's a detective story. Everyone likes detective stories, don't they?

I found this book very intriguing and easily read. It kept me interested and frustrated that I couldn't read it faster. What was really fascinating was that two people working from different ends of the mystery of this painting didn't meet each other in the middle of the winding road. There is still a gap of ten missing years; but out of 300 years that pretty amazing. Hats off to both of them. I also just saw the "Taking of Christ" at the Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibit in the Van Gogh Musuem in Amsterdam. Its a breathtaking painting;just like its history and painter. Worth the read