The Art Detective

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.

Michelangelo

The Art Detective is one of the most compelling collection of mysteries I have read in the last few years. Its tales are thrilling despite the lack of murder, violence, or even theft (with one possible, indirect, exception). And the fact that unlike most detective stories, these are non-fiction.

Philip Mould's website, if you're interested in acquiring British portraits

The Art Detective: Fakes, Frauds and Finds and the Search for Lost Treasures, by Philip Mould is exactly what the name says, stories of how people in the art world examine paintings and decide whether it's a genuine article or a cheap imitation. Since these works can sell for millions of dollars, this is a serious market.

The Art Detective tells stories of how Mould and others make special finds, and demonstrate their authenticity. 

This is surprisingly gripping, and more than money might be at stake. The proper authentication can lead history books to be rewritten, literally. Historian David Starkey revealed that a painting everyone assumed had been of Lady Jane Grey (sometimes called the "Nine Day Queen," a claimant to the throne after the death of Edward VI) was actually one of Henry VIII's wives, because of the jewelry she was wearing. That picture had been a standard in English text books.

As Mould tells it, finding the authenticity of a picture is a combination of intuition and research. There's a difference between the work of a master and an imitator that anyone versed in the work can feel. In one chapter, "The Norman Rockwell Hoax," he tells of a Rockwell painting that everyone knew had to be authentic. Rockwell had sold it to a friend, whose children had given it to a museum to put on display. But many of the people who saw it were bothered for some reason. They chalked this up to the possibility the canvas had been damaged when it was shipped to an international exhibit, damaging the vibrancy of the work. As the title suggests, there was a much better reason it didn't feel like it was painted by the master of Americana. But intuition isn't enough. Modern science lets art experts determine the age of a pigment and frame, details of what had been painted over, and other things essential to proving a piece is genuine.

Once an artist is finished with a painting, that doesn't mean the picture will stay in the same condition forever. In the late 19th and early 20th century, when there was a vogue in America for classic paintings, many tried to to touch up the details that had faded due to smoke and dust accumulating on the varnish. Then, to hide their touch-ups, they had to paint over parts of the picture where something looked incongruous. The subtle details a master might place on the folds of clothing or clumps of trees became streaks of black or green. Sometimes it was even the artists themselves who "ruined" a work. Rembrandt, who made his living as an art dealer as well as a painter, often had his apprentices repaint his works that weren't selling, turning artistic self portraits into something that might move faster. (Rembrandt, by the way, painted wonderful self portraits. I remember seeing one in the Frick Gallery in New York City a few years ago. He looked both prosperous and extremely sad.)

Also, as Mould notes at some points in the book, a lot of information needed to determine a painting's history isn't available on Google. Trying to track the authenticity of different works took him from library archives where one of a few known copiers of a work existed to small towns in Vermont to Nassau in the Bahamas. Other researchers had to parse everything from bizarre 18th century banking records and speeches Queen Elizabeth I delivered to the House of Lords.

Each story is mesmerizing. Perhaps that's to be expected. In The Art Detective, you travel around the world, deal with works worth millions of dollars, and get a taste of both the big picture of history and intimate family moments.

While this book is factual, I feel like I'd be giving away too much to go into details of his finds. But here are a few teasers:

• How the author wound up in the middle of Vermont in a snowstorm, and how he found a collection worth millions by a man who hated to spend money on anything.
• How the author discovered a work he thought could be an early Gainsborough even though it was attributed to a different artist; and how it helped reinterpret that landscape painter's early life. Also, this story had a moment which made me feel so sorry for Mould and his hard work in making this discovery.
• Why generations refused to believe that a picture was by Rembrandt when it turned out the be the genuine article.
• How paintings can suggest details of the love life of royalty. 
• A classic Antiques Roadshow story where a find made while on a fishing trip turns out to be worth a fortune.