The Forgers Spell

Author : Edward Dolnick
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0061844594
Total Pages : 543 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Forger's Spell written by Edward Dolnick and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller “Dolnick brilliantly re-creates the circumstances that made possible one of the most audacious frauds of the 20th century. And in doing so Dolnick plumbs the nature of fraud itself . . . an incomparable page turner.” —Boston Globe As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger’s Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. For seven years a no-account painter named Han van Meegeren managed to pass off his paintings as those of one of the most beloved and admired artists who ever lived. As Edward Dolnick reveals, his true genius lay in psychological manipulation, and he came within inches of fooling the world. Instead, he landed in an Amsterdam court on trial for his life. The Forger’s Spell is the gripping, true tale of this almost perfect crime.

Author : Edward Dolnick
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0060825413
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Forger's Spell written by Edward Dolnick and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2008-06-24 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger's Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. The con man's mark was Hermann Goering, one of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a fanatic collector of art. It was an almost perfect crime. For seven years a no-account painter named Han van Meegeren managed to pass off his paintings as those of one of the most beloved and admired artists who ever lived. But, as Edward Dolnick reveals, the reason for the forger's success was not his artistic skill. Van Meegeren was a mediocre artist. His true genius lay in psychological manipulation, and he came within inches of fooling both the Nazis and the world. Instead, he landed in an Amsterdam court on trial for his life. ARTnews called Dolnick's previous book, the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist, "the best book ever written on art crime." In The Forger's Spell, the stage is bigger, the stakes are higher, and the villains are blacker.

Author : Laney Salisbury
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101105003
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Provenance written by Laney Salisbury and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-07-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tautly paced investigation of one the 20th century's most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries-many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history. Investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo brilliantly recount the tale of a great con man and unforgettable villain, John Drewe, and his sometimes unwitting accomplices. Chief among those was the struggling artist John Myatt, a vulnerable single father who was manipulated by Drewe into becoming a prolific art forger. Once Myatt had painted the pieces, the real fraud began. Drewe managed to infiltrate the archives of the upper echelons of the British art world in order to fake the provenance of Myatt's forged pieces, hoping to irrevocably legitimize the fakes while effectively rewriting art history. The story stretches from London to Paris to New York, from tony Manhattan art galleries to the esteemed Giacometti and Dubuffet associations, to the archives at the Tate Gallery. This enormous swindle resulted in the introduction of at least two hundred forged paintings, some of them breathtakingly good and most of them selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many of these fakes are still out in the world, considered genuine and hung prominently in private houses, large galleries, and prestigious museums. And the sacred archives, undermined by John Drewe, remain tainted to this day. Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller, filled with unforgettable characters and told at a breakneck pace. But this is most certainly not fiction; Provenance is the meticulously researched and captivating account of one of the greatest cons in the history of art forgery.

Author : Jonathan Lopez
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0547247842
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Man Who Made Vermeers written by Jonathan Lopez and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2009 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: A lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering in mockery of the Nazis. And it's a story that's been believed ever since. Too bad it isn't true. Jonathan Lopez has drawn on never-before-seen documents from dozens of archives to write a revelatory new biography of the world's most famous forger. Neither unappreciated artist nor antifascist hero, Van Meegeren emerges as an ingenious, dyed-in-the-wool crook--a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush. Lopez explores a network of illicit commerce that operated across Europe: Not only was Van Meegeren a key player in that high-stakes game in the 1920s and '30s, landing fakes with famous collectors such as Andrew Mellon, but he and his associates later cashed in on the Nazi occupation. The Man Who Made Vermeers is a long-overdue unvarnishing of Van Meegeren's legend and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world.

Author : Jonathon Keats
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199928355
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Forged written by Jonathon Keats and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Vasari, the young Michelangelo often borrowed drawings of past masters, which he copied, returning his imitations to the owners and keeping originals. Half a millennium later, Andy Warhol made a game of "forging" the Mona Lisa, questioning the entire concept of originality. Forged explores art forgery from ancient times to the present. In chapters combining lively biography with insightful art criticism, Jonathon Keats profiles individual art forgers and connects their stories to broader themes about the role of forgeries in society. From the Renaissance master Andrea del Sarto who faked a Raphael masterpiece at the request of his Medici patrons, to the Vermeer counterfeiter Han van Meegeren who duped the avaricious Hermann Göring, to the frustrated British artist Eric Hebborn, who began forging to expose the ignorance of experts, art forgers have challenged "legitimate" art in their own time, breaching accepted practices and upsetting the status quo. They have also provocatively confronted many of the present-day cultural anxieties that are major themes in the arts. Keats uncovers what forgeries—and our reactions to them—reveal about changing conceptions of creativity, identity, authorship, integrity, authenticity, success, and how we assign value to works of art. The book concludes by looking at how artists today have appropriated many aspects of forgery through such practices as street-art stenciling and share-and-share-alike licensing, and how these open-source "copyleft" strategies have the potential to make legitimate art meaningful again. Forgery has been much discussed—and decried—as a crime. Forged is the first book to assess great forgeries as high art in their own right.

Author : Irene Vallejo
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0593318897
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Papyrus written by Irene Vallejo and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rich exploration of the importance of books and libraries in the ancient world that highlights how humanity’s obsession with the printed word has echoed throughout the ages • “Accessible and entertaining.” —The Wall Street Journal Long before books were mass-produced, scrolls hand copied on reeds pulled from the Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Emperors and Pharaohs were so determined to possess them that they dispatched emissaries to the edges of earth to bring them back. When Mark Antony wanted to impress Cleopatra, he knew that gold and priceless jewels would mean nothing to her. So, what did her give her? Books for her library—two hundred thousand, in fact. The long and eventful history of the written word shows that books have always been and will always be a precious—and precarious—vehicle for civilization. Papyrus is the story of the book’s journey from oral tradition to scrolls to codices, and how that transition laid the very foundation of Western culture. Award-winning author Irene Vallejo evokes the great mosaic of literature in the ancient world from Greece’s itinerant bards to Rome’s multimillionaire philosophers, from opportunistic forgers to cruel teachers, erudite librarians to defiant women, all the while illuminating how ancient ideas about education, censorship, authority, and identity still resonate today. Crucially, Vallejo also draws connections to our own time, from the library in war-torn Sarajevo to Oxford’s underground labyrinth, underscoring how words have persisted as our most valuable creations. Through nimble interpretations of the classics, playful and moving anecdotes about her own encounters with the written word, and fascinating stories from history, Vallejo weaves a marvelous tapestry of Western culture’s foundations and identifies the humanist values that helped make us who we are today. At its heart a spirited love letter to language itself, Papyrus takes readers on a journey across the centuries to discover how a simple reed grown along the banks of the Nile would give birth to a rich and cherished culture.

Author : Lee Israel
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 141658868X
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Can You Ever Forgive Me? written by Lee Israel and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-04-25 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An audacious memoir by a down-on-her-luck writer, "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" is Israel's story of the astonishing literary forgeries she conceived and successfully executed for almost two years.

Author : Edgar Wallace
Publisher : Lindhardt og Ringhof
ISBN 13 : 8728350693
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Forger written by Edgar Wallace and published by Lindhardt og Ringhof. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Someone is losing money. Fast. And when forged notes start to appear, Peter Clifton’s hefty riches are called into question. Even his new wife, Jane Leith, can’t help but doubt the man’s bottomless wealth. But when two inspectors clandestinely enter her room one night searching for clues, there’s no telling how a quick witted, clever and tactful woman might react. Packed with suspense and thrills, Edgar Wallace’s ‘The Forger’ is ideal for fans of ‘Inside Man’ and ‘Now You See Me’. Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was an English writer so prolific, that his publisher claimed that he was responsible for a quarter of all books sold in England. An author, journalist and poet, Wallace wrote countless novels, short stories, screen plays, stage plays, along with historical non-fiction. His work has been adapted into more than 160 films. In 1932, Wallace died suddenly in Hollywood, during the initial drafting of his most famous work, ‘King Kong’.

Author : James M. Freeman
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804718903
Total Pages : 928 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hearts of Sorrow written by James M. Freeman and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author looks into the lives and hearts of Vietnamese-Americans who have found the inner strength to struggle and create new lives in a new cultural environment

Author : Lora-Marie Bernard
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1467117870
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Counterfeit Prince of Old Texas, The: Swindling Slaver Monroe Edwards written by Lora-Marie Bernard and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "After Monroe Edwards died in Sing Sing prison in 1847, penny dreadfuls memorialized him as the most celebrated American forger until the turn of the century. With a bizarre biography too complicated for easy history, his critical contributions to Texas settlement, revolution and annexation were inextricably mired in his activities as a slave smuggler and confidence man. Author Lora-Marie Bernard unravels the unbelievable story of one of the most notorious criminal adventurers ever to set foot on the soil of the Lone Star State." -- From cover.