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The Lost Painting

By Jonathan Harr

(12)

| Paperback | 9780375759864

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Book Description

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.
". . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, A Civil Action, was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --The New York Times Book Review

"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --The Economist

From the Hardcover edition.

Critics

The Lost Painting By Jonathan Harr

Months before he completed what would become his 1995 award-winning bestseller A Civil Action (and years before it was turned into the hit movie starring John Travolta), Jonathan Harr ran out of money. So when an editor from the New York Times magazi ... (read full critics)

bookpage published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

The Lost Painting: The Search for a Caravaggio Masterpiece By Jonathan Harr

Jonathan Harr, prize-winning author of A Civil Action, takes on a very different subject in The Lost Painting: The Search for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, read by Campbell Scott. It sounds like a complex thriller, where detective work by young art histo ... (read full critics)

bookpage published on Mon, 13 Sep 2010

See all critics

3 Reviews

Captivating, page-turning account of the search and discovery of a long-lost painting by Caravaggio, called "The taking of Christ". It casts some glimpses of light on Caravaggio's life and artistic genius even though it's not a biography of Caravaggio. This is not a fictional work: Francesca Cappe ... (continue)

Captivating, page-turning account of the search and discovery of a long-lost painting by Caravaggio, called "The taking of Christ". It casts some glimpses of light on Caravaggio's life and artistic genius even though it's not a biography of Caravaggio. This is not a fictional work: Francesca Cappelletti (as well as the other characters in the book) is an art historian (at the time of the discovery of Caravaggio's painting she was a young grad student), so the book is a real accont of the long quest that brought to the discovery of Caravaggio's lost painting. Really interesting read if you're into history and art.

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Lilyofthevalleys2000 said on Sep 8, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

This is a wonderful book about the quest for a lost Caravaggio masterpiece. Harr has interviewed all participants and knows how to present the material so that the book reads like a thriller. In the meantime, you also learn something about the about the life and times of Caravaggio. Having just been ... (continue)

This is a wonderful book about the quest for a lost Caravaggio masterpiece. Harr has interviewed all participants and knows how to present the material so that the book reads like a thriller. In the meantime, you also learn something about the about the life and times of Caravaggio. Having just been to Rome where I saw a number of paintings by Caravaggio in the churches for which they were destined, this book really appealed to me.
But if you love art and its history (or plain intrigue and scheming in the art world), this book will certainly have something to offer you!

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Linda Wilke said on Jun 1, 2009 | Add your feedback

Fascinating bit of mystery, history and art. Could recommend this to those who liked City of Falling Angels or vice versa.

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Branflakez said on Aug 2, 2007 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback