The Raphael Affair

The Raphael Affair
Author: Iain Pears
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2007
Genre: Argyll, Jonathan (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 0007229178

This is the first novel in Iain Pears's acclaimed art crime series, introducing General Bottando and Flavia di Stefano of the Italian National Art Theft Squad. It has an evocative Italian setting and an authentic art historical background.

An Instance of the Fingerpost

An Instance of the Fingerpost
Author: Iain Pears
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 835
Release: 1999-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101640111

In 1663 Oxford, a servant girl confesses to a murder. But four witnesses--a medical student, the son of a traitor, a cryptographer, and an archivist--each finger a different culprit...

The Boston Raphael

The Boston Raphael
Author: Belinda Rathbone
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2014-10
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1567925405

The riveting story of a museum director caught in a web of local and international intrigue while secretly pursuing a forgotten Renaissance painting-the Boston Raphael. On the eve of its centennial celebrations in 1969, the Boston MFA announced the acquisition of an unknown and uncatalogued painting attributed to Raphael. Boston's coup made headlines around the world. Soon, an Italian art sleuth began investigating the painting's export from Italy, challenging the museum's ownership. Simultaneously, experts on both sides of the Atlantic lined up to debate its very authenticity. The museums charismatic director, Perry T. Rathbone, faced the most challenging crossroads of his career. The Boston Raphael was a media sensation in its time, but the full story of the forces that converged on the museum and how they intersected with the challenges of the Sixties is now revealed in full detail by the director's daughter.

The Dream of Scipio

The Dream of Scipio
Author: Iain Pears
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Total Pages: 539
Release: 2010-08-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307370887

Three narratives, set in the fifth, fourteenth, and twentieth centuries, all revolving around an ancient text and each with a love story at its centre, are the elements of this brilliantly ingenious novel, a follow-up to the international bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost. The centuries are the 5th (the final days of the Roman Empire); the 14th (the years of the Plague — the Black Death); and the 20th (World War II). The setting for each is the same — Provence — and each has at its heart a love story. The narratives intertwine seamlessly, and what joins them thematically is an ancient text — “The Dream of Scipio” — a work of neo-Platonism that poses timeless philosophical questions. What is the obligation of the individual in a society under siege? What is the role of learning when civilization itself is threatened, whether by acts of man or nature? Does virtue lie more in engagement or in neutrality? “Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless,” warns one of Pears’s characters. The Dream of Scipio is a bona fide novel of ideas, a dazzling feat of storytelling, fiction for our times.

The Domenichino Affair

The Domenichino Affair
Author: Elizabeth Cropper
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780300109146

Ten years after completing his work The Last Communion of Saint Jerome, Bolognese painter Domenichino was accused by his rival Giovanni Lanfranco of stealing the idea for the painting from an altarpiece crafted by Lanfranco’s teacher, Agostino Carracci. The resulting scandal reverberated through the centuries, drawing responses by artists and critics from Poussin and Malvasia to Fuseli and Delacroix.Why was Domenichino attacked in this way when other related paintings--including Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin and Perugino’s painting of the same subject--aroused no such negative response? In this fast-paced book, Elizabeth Cropper investigates the Domenichino affair and addresses the perennial debate regarding the precise nature of originality and of imitation. She offers close readings of the paintings involved in the story, detailed analysis of attitudes toward imitation, emulation, and plagiarism, and a fascinating discussion of what Domenichino’s plight signifies in art history.

Death and Restoration

Death and Restoration
Author: Iain Pears
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2007
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0007229216

Flavia di Stefano of Rome's art police is surprised to receive a tip-off that a raid is being planned on the monastery of San Giovanni. With the help of art dealer Jonathan Argyll, they attempt to solve the mystery.

The Last Judgement

The Last Judgement
Author: Iain Pears
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2007
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0007229208

When Jonathan Argyll agrees to transport the Death of Socrates from a gallery in Paris to its new owner in Rome, he has no idea that such a worthless, nondescript painting could cause such a stir.

The Portrait

The Portrait
Author: Iain Pears
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2006-04-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1440685010

A national bestseller from acclaimed author Iain Pears, The Portrait is a novel of suspense and a tour de force. An art critic journeys to a remote island off Brittany to sit for a portrait painted by an old friend, a gifted but tormented artist living in self-imposed exile. The painter recalls their years of friendship, the gift of the critic's patronage, and his callous betrayals. As he struggles to capture the character of the man, as well as his image, on canvas, it becomes clear that there is much more than a portrait at stake... Iain Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio are also available from Riverhead Books.

Giotto's Hand

Giotto's Hand
Author: Iain Pears
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2007
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0007229240

General Bottando of Rome's Art Theft Squad is in trouble. His theory that a single master criminal, dubbed 'Giotto', is behind a string of major art thefts has aroused the scorn of his arch enemy and rival, the bureaucrat Corrado Argan. He needs a result, and the confession of a dying woman may just provide the vital clue.

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter
Author: Timothy Miller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2022-02-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1645060438

Paris, 1890. When Sherlock Holmes finds himself chasing an art dealer through the streets of Paris, he’s certain he’s smoked out one of the principals of a cunning forgery ring responsible for the theft of some of the Louvre’s greatest masterpieces. But for once, Holmes is dead wrong. He doesn’t know that the dealer, Theo Van Gogh, is rushing to the side of his brother, who lies dying of a gunshot wound in Auvers. He doesn’t know that the dealer’s brother is a penniless misfit artist named Vincent, known to few and mourned by even fewer. Officialdom pronounces the death a suicide, but a few minutes at the scene convinces Holmes it was murder. And he’s bulldog-determined to discover why a penniless painter who harmed no one had to be killed–and who killed him. Who could profit from Vincent’s death? How is the murder entwined with his own forgery investigation? Holmes must retrace the last months of Vincent’s life, testing his mettle against men like the brutal Paul Gauguin and the secretive Toulouse-Lautrec, all the while searching for the girl Olympia, whom Vincent named with his dying breath. She can provide the truth, but can anyone provide the proof? From the madhouse of St. Remy to the rooftops of Paris, Holmes hunts a killer—while the killer hunts him.