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Stealing the Mystic Lamb
The True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece
Contributors
By Noah Charney
Formats and Prices
Price
$18.99Price
$23.99 CADFormat
Format:
- Trade Paperback $18.99 $23.99 CAD
- ebook $11.99 $15.99 CAD
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Since its completion in 1432, this twelve-panel oil painting has been looted in three different wars, burned, dismembered, forged, smuggled, illegally sold, censored, hidden, attacked by iconoclasts, hunted by the Nazis and Napoleon, used as a diplomatic tool, ransomed, rescued by Austrian double-agents, and stolen a total of thirteen times.
In this fast-paced, real-life thriller, art historian Noah Charney unravels the stories of each of these thefts. In the process, he illuminates the whole fascinating history of art crime, and the psychological, ideological, religious, political, and social motivations that have led many men to covet this one masterpiece above all others.
Genre:
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Kirkus, July 15, 2010
“Charney unsnarls the tangled history of Jan van Eyck's 15th-century The Ghent Altarpiece (aka The Mystic Lamb), 'the most desired and victimized object of all time.' With a novelist's sense of structure and tension, the author adds an easy familiarity with the techniques of oil painting and with the intertwining vines of art and political and religious history…. A brisk tale of true-life heroism, villainy, artistry and passion.”
Christian Science Monitor, August 30, 2010
"[A]ction-packed…. In scrupulous detail, Charney divulges the secrets of the revered painting's past, and in doing so, gives readers a history lesson on art crime, a still-prospering black market.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 14, 2010
“Well-written and thorough, this book reminds us of the influence and fragility of art, our veniality and heroism, and the delights found in both the beautiful and the strange.”
Maclean's, October 14, 2010
“In Charney's hand, the story of the various heists often reads like a political thriller.”
Catholic Herald, December 13, 2010
- On Sale
- Apr 3, 2012
- Page Count
- 336 pages
- Publisher
- PublicAffairs
- ISBN-13
- 9781610390965
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