The lost painting /

Written like a detective story, this book recounts the unlikely story of the discovery of The Taking of Christ, a "lost" original by Caravaggio. It follows two intersecting paths to the painting. One leads through the serendipitous findings in the Mattei family archives in Recanati by two graduate students from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa. In 1989, Cappelletti and Testa documented the creation of the work in 1602 in Rome, and confirmed its sale to a Scotsman in 1802. The painting subsequently disappeared after its auction in Edinburgh in 1921. The other trail involves Sergio Benedetti, a restorer at the National Gallery of Ireland, who in 1990 discerned hidden qualities beneath the grime of an old canvas tucked away in a Jesuit residence in Dublin. Although the breathless narrative, colorful descriptions, re-created dialogue, and digressions into the personal lives of the protagonists become somewhat tiresome, Harr does a good job of capturing the nature of archival research, and he intersperses his account with a brief, if accurate, biography of Caravaggio. Geared to a general audience, this is nevertheless a valid and interesting book for all readers. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through faculty. J. I. Miller California State University, Long Beach

Harr, author of the best-selling A Civil Action (1995), turns from a true-life courtroom drama to the riveting story of a lost masterpiece. The Italian painter Caravaggio (1573-1610) was famous for his startling vision of the divine in ordinary lives, and infamous for his street-fighter life. An artistic genius and a fugitive killer, Caravaggio remains a compelling enigma, and his mystique is enhanced by the scarcity of his works. The disappearance of one painting in particular, The Taking of Christ, baffled art historians for two centuries. Harr, a consummate storyteller, now traces the canvas' journey in an effortlessly educating and marvelously entertaining mix of art history and scholarly sleuthing. The search begins when a Roman graduate student, Francesca Cappelletti, manages to charm the Marchesa Mattei, an eccentric descendant of one of Caravaggio's Roman patrons, into allowing her and her to examine never-before-studied family archives. Meanwhile, Sergio Benedetti, an ambitious Italian restorer working in Dublin at the National Gallery of Ireland, believes that an old painting hanging in a Jesuit residence, a work in dire need of cleaning, is a forgotten Caravaggio. As Harr expertly tracks the converging quests of the students and the restorer, he incisively recounts Caravaggio's wild and tragic life, and offers evocative testimony to the resonance of his daring and magnificent work. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2005 Booklist

Given the relative obscurity of 16th-century the Italian baroque master and all-around creative bad boy Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, who after a flare of fame remained relatively unknown from his death until the 1950s, the 1992 discovery of the artist's missing painting The Taking of Christ understandably stirred up a frenzy in academic circles. Harr's skillful and long-awaited follow-up to 1997's A Civil Action provides a finely detailed account of the fuss. While contoured brush strokes and pentimenti repaints have little to do with the toxic waters and legalese Harr dissected in his debut, the author writes comfortably about complex artistic processes and enlivens the potentially tedious details of artistic restoration with his lively and articulate prose. Broken into short, succinct chapters, the narrative unfolds at a brisk pace, skipping quickly from the perspective of 91-year-old Caravaggio scholar Sir Denis Mahon to that of young, enterprising Francesca Cappelletti, a graduate student at the University of Rome researching the disappearance of The Taking of Christ. The mystery ends with Sergio Benedetti, a restorer at the National Gallery of Ireland, who ultimately discovers the lost, grime-covered masterpiece in a house owned by Jesuit priests. But while adept at coordinating dates and analyzing hairline fractures in aged paint, Harr often seems overly concerned with the step-by-step process of tracking down The Taking of the Christ, as if the specific artist who created it were irrelevant. Granted, Harr is not an art historian, but his lack of artistic analysis of Caravaggio's paintings may frustrate readers who wish to know more about the naturalistic Italian's works. (Nov. 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Jonathan Harr's The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece (Random. 2006. ISBN 9780-375-75986-4. pap. $13.95) traces dual paths to the discovery of Caravaggio's The Taking of Christ. The first follows two graduate art students from Rome, the other a restorer at the National Gallery of Ireland who is assigned an old painting of unknown origin. As the story unfolds, readers are drawn deep into the world of archival research and the life of Caravaggio. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Anyone who's ever scoured a yard sale for that undiscovered antique will savor this engrossing story of a young art student on the trail of a missing 17th-century masterpiece by the Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). Part detective story, part treasure hunt, this book takes us from dusty basement archives to the ornate galleries of Europe's finest art museums. The prize is a missing Caravaggio masterpiece called The Taking of Christ, depicting Judas' betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane. Many copies have surfaced over the centuries, but the original was presumed lost, possibly destroyed. The story follows a young Italian art student, Francesca Cappelletti, who uncovers unknown documents about the painting while researching the Italian Baroque artist. Poring over centuries-old archives in the basement of a crumbling Italian seaside palazzo, she learns that the The Taking of Christ was mistakenly ascribed to a German artist when it was purchased by a wealthy Scotsman in the early 1800s. Francesca follows the trail to Edinburgh, where she hits a dead end until contacted by a bumptious Italian art restorer working in Dublin who may have stumbled upon the missing masterpiece. Harr provides a fascinating glimpse into the insular world of art history and art restoration. He also delivers an entertaining cast of characters, from the diligent Francesca to the aristocratic Caravaggio scholar Sir Denis Mahon to the combustible art historian Giampaolo Correale, who first sets Francesca on her Caravaggio quest. The story would have benefited from more insight into Caravaggio the artist--there's not quite enough here to help the uninformed appreciate the beauty of his work. Still, art lovers and mystery fans should find plenty to ponder and enjoy. (Francine Prose's brief, equally fine biography of the artist--Caravaggio--will be published in October.) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.