The Museum of lost art / Noah Charney

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Introduction: a museum of lost art -- Theft -- War -- Accident -- Iconoclasm & vandalism -- Acts of God -- Temporal works -- Destroyed by owner -- Buried & exhumed -- Lost, or never was? -- Conclusion: lost is just another word for waiting to be found.

"Imagine a Museum of Lost Art. It would contain more masterpieces than all the world's existing museums combined. From ancient sculptures of Athens and Rome to icons and paintings erased by the Reformation, from artworks destroyed by the Nazis to those looted and smashed by ISIS, a Museum of Lost Art would provide a cutting reminder of the fragility of the world's treasures. [This book] examines the adventures and misadventures of art lost, but also sometimes found. The sparkling gold Byzantine mosaics in Istanbul's Hagia Sophia were concealed for 400 years under whitewash before being revealed again in 1934. Missing works by Goya, Picasso and Malevich have been discovered beneath later over-painting, by virtue of X-ray an other technologies. And a canvas by Willem de Kooning, stolen from a museum gallery, was rediscovered in 2017, having hung on the wall of a suburban bedroom for more than thirty years. These and other finds offer hope that all is not necessarily lost. In this book, art historian and art crime expert Noah Charney brings back to life a selection of lost artworks and some that have been found again, each with its story to tell."--Dust jacket.