On the trail of a lost painting

Art museums are offering virtual tours, but if you want to hunt down a masterpiece instead, here's the book for you.

Caravaggio was an original Troubled Genius. In his short, violent life, he caroused about with crooks and painted breathtaking artworks. A Caravaggio is impossible to ignore ⁠— the lighting, the chiaroscuro, the gore and the stormy emotions. This was an artist whose every
brushstroke produced overwrought drama. Apples and oranges on a table and sheep on a
pleasant green hill were for more basic painters.

But the thing with Old Masters like Caravaggio was that after five centuries and frequent European wars, their works are hard to find. Around 80 paintings by Caravaggio ⁠— who was born Michaelangelo Merisi near Milan in 1571 ⁠— were thought to be in existence. Some were destroyed in the Second World War. The few that survive are jealously guarded by museums.

But then, in 1989, something strange and wonderful happened. A lost painting of Caravaggio’s ⁠— The Taking of Christ ⁠— suddenly emerged. Well, it perhaps was an original, but the art world is rife with forgeries. So was this the genuine article?

Emotional resonance

The discovery of The Taking of Christ and the group of experts who hunt down its
provenance is the subject of Jonathan Harr’s book, The Lost Painting. Harr’s narrative reads like a thriller ⁠— no small achievement, considering that the story at its heart is about an enterprising art researcher, Francesca Cappelletti, combing her way through centuries of archives and documents. But for those who love history, art and have a special fondness for bad-boy geniuses, The Lost Painting is a compelling read.

Harr had won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award for his first work of non-fiction, A
Civil Action. By the time The Lost Painting was published a decade later, a lot of the mystery
around what happened to The Taking of Christ from the time it was finished by Caravaggio in the 17th century had mostly been resolved. However, the passage of time allowed Harr to take a deeper view of the painting’s discovery, giving the book an emotional resonance it wouldn’t have had otherwise.

For those who’ve never watched Fake or Fortune? or Antiques Roadshow, The Lost Painting gives you a unique insight into the painfully exacting and pedantic process of artwork authentication. It’s clearly a field that attracts only the truly dedicated ⁠— it can take decades
to gain expertise on one single painter. The research on one artwork alone can take years to
complete ⁠— luckily, countries like Italy seem to have records going back centuries ⁠— and all that the researcher has to do is convince established experts to build consensus on authenticity. It is immensely satisfying to read about the intrepid art detectives connecting the dots between ledgers found in one crumbling library with the painting’s journey across a country and a continent. Right now, the art museums of the world may be offering only virtual tours in the new normal, but if you want to experience the thrill of a more carefree time and pursue the shadow of an artist and his work through history, then The Lost Painting is the book you need to read.

The author is a Bangalore-based writer and communications professional with many published short stories and essays to her credit.

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