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Sign up todayThe Eye
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreIt’s a rare and secret profession, comprising a few dozen people around the world equipped with a mysterious mixture of knowledge and innate sensibility. Summoned to Swiss bank vaults, Fifth Avenue apartments, and Tokyo storerooms, they are entrusted by collectors, dealers, and museums to decide if a coveted picture is real or fake and to determine if it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The Eye lifts the veil on the rarified world of connoisseurs devoted to the authentication and discovery of Old Master artworks.
This is an art adventure story and a memoir all in one, written by a leading expert on the Renaissance whose métier is a high-stakes detective game involving massive amounts of money and frenetic activity in the service of the art market and scholarship alike. It’s also an eloquent argument for the enduring value of visual creativity, told with passion, brilliance, and surprising candor.
Philippe Costamagna is a specialist in sixteenth-century Italian painting and director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Ajaccio, Corsica. He is the author of a book on the Florentine Renaissance painter Pontormo.
Robertson Dean has played leading roles on and off Broadway and at dozens of regional theaters throughout the country. He has a BA from Tufts University and an MFA from Yale. His audiobook narration has garnered ten AudioFile Earphones Awards. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he works in film and television in addition to narrating.
Frank Wynne has translated works by Michel Houellebecq, Boualem Sansal, and many more writers. He won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2005 for his translation of Frédéric Beigbeder’s Windows on the World.
Reviews
“Exhilarating and informative…Mr. Costamagna is catholic in his enthusiasm and is open to the new. He tells delicious stories.”
“An informative yet gripping and seductively gossipy memoir…Pulls back the curtain on connoisseurship at its most powerful.”
“An insider’s look at the dramatic world of attributing and dating art…This art world Sherlock Holmes travels the globe…Delightful.”
“Rollicking and erudite…Costamagna’s candor and well-earned hubris make for an entertaining foray into the high-stakes art world.”
“Robertson Dean narrates this audiobook in an authoritative style that suits the high culture of its subject. He delivers an appropriately high-brow tone—for this audiobook may be categorized as appealing mostly to those in the specialized world of art appreciation, authentication, and the evaluation of provenance.”
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