PublishedHarpercollins, June 2011 |
ISBN9780007319152 |
FormatSoftcover, 320 pages |
Dimensions19.8cm × 12.9cm × 2.4cm |
CSI meets Who Do You Think You Are? meets Time Team meets The Antiques Roadshow. Two-dimensional works of art become three-dimensional thrillers.
Philip Mould is an international art dealer who has lived the high stakes game of art sleuthing for twenty years. In Sleuth, we encounter the fascinating dealers, experts, auctioneers and restorers who risk fortunes and reputations to turn overlooked artworks into coveted treasures.
Sleuth is laced with dramas:
aEUROc Gainsborough's earliest picture emerges in a Los Angeles saleroom aEURO" the author has three days to find the missing facts and decide what to pay.
aEUROc The most powerful man in the art establishment, with the influence to elevate a copy into a priceless original, is asked to look at a 'fake' Rembrandt self portrait: if he says yes a aGBP5,000 picture turns into aGBP5 million masterpiece.
aEUROc A Vermont professor unlocks the door of a defunct Catholic church to reveal a hidden cache of 300 portraits.
aEUROc An auctioneer notices from the upper story of a bus that Damien Hirst's restaurant is being dismantled. He swoops in and sells the fixtures and fittings for aGBP13 million.
Sleuth is a series of stories which not only reveals the extraordinary culture of detection but the people behind it. Paintings and their discovery become a way into the minds, preoccupations and professions of a raft of influential figures beyond the commercial and museum faAade aEURO" men and women who have shaped their lives in pursuit of truth and profit through art.
