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Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story.
Random House
October 2005
Featuring: Caravaggio; Francesca Cappelletti
288 pages ISBN: 0375508015 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a
decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement,
cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive
unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from
Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that
inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value,
a painting lost for almost two centuries. The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque.
He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset
by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and
brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one
rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail,
all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and
visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth,
but success didn’t alter his violent temperament. His rage
finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome
a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange
circumstances. Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty
of his works are in existence today. Many others–no one
knows the precise number–have been lost to time. Somewhere,
surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in
a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace,
mistaken for a mere copy. Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an
spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting
known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the
circumstances of its disappearance have captivated
Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti
stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks
the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of
history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an
art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages
to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle. Told with consummate skill by the writer of the
bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost
Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective
story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio’s strange,
turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work
come to life in these pages. Harr’s account is not unlike a
Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.
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