The Eye: An Insider's Memoir of Masterpieces, Money, and the Magnetism of Art

(Hardback)

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Description

The Eye lifts the veil on the rarefied world of connoisseurs devoted to the authentication and discovery of Old Master art works. This is an art adventure story and a memoir all in one, written by a leading expert on the Renaissance whose metier is a high-stakes detective game involving massive amounts of money and frenetic activity in the service of the art market and scholarship alike. It's also an eloquent argument for the enduring value of visual creativity, told with passion, brilliance and surprising candour.

Reviews

"By placing connoisseurship back at the very center of art history, Philippe Costamagna weaves a fascinating tale and brilliantly highlights the enduring power of intuition and expertise in the visual arts today." --Salvatore Settis, chairman of the Louvre Museum Scientific Council and author of If Venice Dies "Initiates us with quiet elegance, part historical essay, part autobiographical account, enriched by a thousand anecdotes, The Eye follows its meandering path to our great delight." --Le Monde "Passionate and often funny ... This work is very rich." --La Tribune de l'Art "As thrilling as a police novel." --La Croix "Chapters full of tasty anecdotes." --Il Foglio "By placing connoisseurship back at the very center of art history, Philippe Costamagna weaves a fascinating tale and brilliantly highlights the enduring power of intuition and expertise in the visual arts today." --Salvatore Settis, chairman of the Louvre Museum Scientific Council and author of If Venice Dies"Initiates us with quiet elegance, part historical essay, part autobiographical account, enriched by a thousand anecdotes, The Eye follows its meandering path to our great delight."--Le Monde "Passionate and often funny ... This work is very rich."--La Tribune de l'Art "As thrilling as a police novel."--La Croix

Author Bio

Philippe Costamagna is a specialist in sixteenth-century Italian painting and director of the Muse des Beaux-Arts in Ajaccio, Corsica. He is the author of a book on the Florentine Renaissance painter Pontormo. Frank Wynne is an award-winning translator from French and Spanish, who has translated works by Michel Houellebecq, Claude Lanzmann, Frdric Beigbeder and Yasmina Khadra. He is the author of I Was Vermeer, a nonfiction book about art forger Han van Meegeren.