The Forger's Spell

Author: Edward Dolnick
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061844594
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 543

Book Description
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.

The Forger's Spell

Author: Edward Dolnick
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060825413
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
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.

Provenance

Author: Laney Salisbury
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101105003
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
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.

The Forger

Author: Edgar Wallace
Publisher: House of Stratus
ISBN: 0755114930
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
Forged notes have started to appear everywhere. Peter Clifton is rich, but no one is quite certain how he acquired his money - not even his new wife, the beautiful Jane Leith. One night someone puts a ladder to Jane's window and enters her room. It is not her jewels they are after.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Author: Lee Israel
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 141658868X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
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.

Telling Tales

Author: Melissa Katsoulis
Publisher: Constable
ISBN: 1472107837
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
When Dionysus the Renegade faked a Sophocles text in 400BC (cunningly inserting the acrostic 'Heraclides is ignorant of letters') to humiliate an academic rival, he paved the way for two millennia of increasingly outlandish literary hoaxers. The path from his mischievous stunt to more serious tricksters like the controversial memoirist and Oprah-duper James Frey, takes in every sort of writer: from the religious zealot to the bored student, via the vengeful academic and the out-and-out joker. But whether hoaxing for fame, money, politics or simple amusement, each perpetrator represents something unique about why we write. Their stories speak volumes about how reading, writing and publishing have grown out of the fine and private places of the past into big-business, TV-book-club-led mass-marketplaces which, some would say, are ripe for the ripping. For the first time, the complete history of this fascinating sub-genre of world literature is revealed. Suitable for bookworms of all ages and persuasions, this is true crime for people who don't like true crime, and literary history for the historically illiterate. A treat to read right through or to dip into, it will make you think twice next time you slip between the covers of an author you don't know...

Counterfeit Prince of Old Texas, The: Swindling Slaver Monroe Edwards

Author: Lora-Marie Bernard
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467117870
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
"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.

John Dee's Five Books of Mystery

Author: John Dee
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 9781578631780
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 500

Book Description
Discovered in a hidden compartment of an old chest long after his death, the secret writings of John Dee, one of the leading scientists and occultists of Elizabethan England, record in minute detail his research into the occult. Dee concealed his treatises on the nature of humankind's contact with angelic realms and languages throughout his life, and they were nearly lost forever. In his brief biography of John Dee, Joseph Peterson calls him a "true Renaissance man"? detailing his work in astronomy, mathematics, navigation, the arts, astrology, and the occult sciences. He was even thought to be the model for Shakespeare's Prospero. All this was preparation for Dee's main achievement: five books, revealed and transcribed between March 1582 and May 1583, bringing to light mysteries and truths that scholars and adepts have been struggling to understand and use ever since. These books detail his system for communicating with the angels, and reveal that the angels were interested in and involved with the exploration and colonization of the New World, and in heralding in a new age or new world order. While Dee's influence was certainly felt in his lifetime, his popularity has grown tremendously since. His system was used and adapted by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and subsequently by Aleister Crowley. This new edition of John Dee's Five Books of Mystery is by far the most accessible and complete published to date. Peterson has translated Latin terms and added copious footnotes, putting the instructions and references into context for the modern reader.

The Diviner's Tale

Author: Brad Morrow
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547504381
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
“In addition to scaring the daylights out of us, The Diviner’s Tale stands up for the offbeat and unconventional in human nature” (The Boston Globe). Cassandra Brooks is a diviner, what used to be called a water-witch. Hired by a developer to dowse some land in upstate New York, she is walking a lonely forested valley one spring morning when she comes upon the shocking vision of a young girl hanged from a tree. When she returns with authorities to the site, the body has vanished, leaving in question Cassandra’s credibility, if not her sanity. The next day, during a return visit with the sheriff to have another look, a dazed, mute missing girl emerges from the woods—alive, and the very picture of Cassandra’s hanged girl. What follows is the narrative of ever-deepening and increasingly bizarre divinations that will lead this gifted young woman, the struggling single mother of twin boys, hurtling toward a past she’d long since thought was behind her. The Diviner’s Tale is at once a journey of self-discovery and an unorthodox murder mystery, a tale of the fantastic and a family chronicle told by an otherwise ordinary woman who is about to be locked in a mortal chess match with a real-life killer who has haunted her since before she can remember. “[A] splendidly written mystery . . . A compelling story. Grade: A.” —The Plain Dealer “An astonishing writer.” —Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times–bestselling author of Double Delight “Beautifully written, tight as a tripwire, The Diviner’s Tale isn’t quite like any ghost story I’ve read before.” —Boing Boing “Morrow quietly drops clues as he guides you deeper into the mystery of the dead girl—and into Cass’s own mind.” —The New York Times

Art Fraud Detective

Author: Anna Nilsen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780753411957
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Some of the priceless masterpieces have been stolen from the Town Gallery and replaced with forgeries, and it's up to you spot the clues and identify the fakes. This spot-the-difference game also contains facts about paintings, tips on the techniques of the Old Masters and a glossary of art terms.