The Last Leonardo: A Masterpiece, a Mystery and the Dirty World of Art

The book was in excellent condition and arrived quickly.

I hesitate a long time before buying this book, going back and forth about if I would enjoy it. I remember following the last auction at Christie's, questioning the provenance and authenticity of it and all the (bad - and good) jokes that came with its record-breaking price. I have a master's in Contemporary Art, and by moment I felt like I did when I first watch Games of Throne - lost within all the name dropping... I had to write down notes to follow. At times, it was just enjoyable and easy to read. It is a book worth reading if you enjoy a mix of art history, biography, research and debate. The position of the author is sometimes bias, sometimes straight on, as he can't choose a side. Entertaining at the very least, and fairly actual by times.

I thought I knew something about Leonardo and this painting, but there was so much more to learn! Ben Lewis has documented as much as is possible to know today about this remarkable painting with an even more remarkable history. I’m buying another copy since I gave away my first copy the day I finished it, saying it was one of the best and most informative art history books I’ve read. Of course there is stuff we can’t know for sure after 500 years, but the epic manipulation of the art world is masterfully documented. Not knowing where the painting is today, and not being sure how almost half a billion dollars passed through so many hands adds to the mystery. The photographs included here give added insights to the painting and its history, and I look forward to hearing more about the brilliant restoration and the hoped-for exhibition of this intriguing masterpiece.

I'm so glad I bought this. I knew nothing at all about art history, thought it was probably concerned with memorising dates and remembering the difference between Monet and Manet. But there's so much more - it took me into a world I'd never really thought about.So - who painted it in the first place? Did they have help? Whose help? Who copied, and what? Clues to its being Leonardo ... clues to its not being ... goodness me.Then - who bought it? Why? Did they know what they were buying? Whom were they trying to impress?How long did it spend time unrecognised on strange walls? Who passed it by without recognising it? Why did a couple of art dealers decide to take a punt on its being a genuine Leonardo?Then - and this is fascinating - what constitutes 'restoration' and where do you draw then line between restoration and re-painting? Why wasn't the restoration better documented? (Not to mention lots of interesting information about how Leonardo got skin to glow and drapery to fold).And finally - who's buying art nowadays, and why? Do they know what they're doing? Who's being naive, and who's being cunning ... and where's the damn thing gone to, because it seems to be hidden away again.I learned so much; it's such a well-written story; I'm really pleased that I read it. Whether or not you're a budding art historian, do buy it.

Two plucky grunts in the art world take a chance on an item at an estate sale and turn a few bucks into millions. Yep, the stuff of dreams and ostensibly the story behind the unearthing of what might (or might not be) Leonardo's last surviving work. This backdrop is used a little too aggressively to grab the reader in a detective-story grip but what unfolds is a little more subtle. The next 300 pages provides a fascinating and sometimes depressing peek behind the curtains of the art world and auction house operations that pretend to advance culture but exist purely to exact profit.The story is remarkable and Lewis has done an admirable job of untangling the various strands which mix evidence with myth, records with interpretations, and judgement with wishful thinking. The economic facts are fairly clear, a bargain basement purchase turns out to be a work that sells for more than any other painting in history. But along the way, one's faith in the ability of experts to actually know what they are talking about is called into question repeatedly. How does one actually determine who put paint to canvas centuries ago when we know such work was often the result of a workshop not an individual? How many times has an old master been touched up or refinished over the years rendering the contemporary version distinct from the original? When records of ownership have gaps spanning years and decades, who really knows the provenance of anything, so why do we rely so much on this to determine authenticity?This book is an examination of one painting but it lifts the lid on the amount of fakery that exists among the 'experts' who are called on to judge originality, worth, and origins of objects. In a remarkable twist here we even learn that the very auction house that sold the painting for a world-record sum, failed to buy it years before in an estate appraisal as they considered it worthless. Plausible deniability of their ignorance follows, and they make a huge fee on the sale in the end presenting it as a true da Vinci, but this turns out to be typical of so many of the participants here -- motivated by self-interest and profit, from collectors to restorers, dealers to scholars, curators to creditors, the claim that it's "about art" is shown to be a smokescreen behind which most participants hide.There's a lot of research here, mostly uncredited until the afterword, and in a world of intrigue, it's not surprising then that one of the players in the story seems to be reviewing the book here too, suggesting the author might not be as accurate as he could have been. It all adds to the plot. Is this a detective story or an expose? Probably a bit of both, and a good read as a result.