The Last Leonardo

Author : Ben Lewis
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2019-06-25
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781984819260

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The Last Leonardo by Ben Lewis Pdf

An epic quest exposes hidden truths about Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the recently discovered masterpiece that sold for $450 million—and might not be the real thing. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the early sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings, and sheikhs. Ben Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Amsterdam, Moscow, and New Orleans; to the galleries, salerooms, and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across six centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, in which we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth. Praise for The Last Leonardo “The story of the world’s most expensive painting is narrated with great gusto and formidably researched detail in Ben Lewis’s book. . . . Lewis’s probings of the Salvator’s backstory raise questions about its historical status and visibility, and these lead in turn to the fundamental question of whether the painting is really an autograph work by Leonardo.”—Charles Nicholl, The Guardian “As the art historian and critic Ben Lewis shows in his forensically detailed and gripping investigation into the history, discovery and sales of the painting, establishing the truth is like nailing down jelly.”— Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times

Author : Ross King
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2012-01-01
Category : Art, Renaissance
ISBN : 9780747599470

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Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King Pdf

Milan, 1496 and forty-four-year-old Leonardo da Vinci has a reputation for taking on commissions and failing to complete them. He is in a state of professional uncertainty and financial difficulty. For eighteen months he has been painting murals in both the Sforza Castle in Milan and the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The latter project will become the Last Supper, a complex mural that took a full three years to complete on a surface fifteen feet high by twenty feet wide. Not only had he never attempted a painting of such size, but he had no experience whatsoever in painting in the physically demanding medium of fresco.For more than five centuries the Last Supper has been an artistic, religious and cultural icon. The art historian Kenneth Clark has called it 'the keystone of European art', and for a century after its creation it was regarded as nothing less than a miraculous image. Even today, according to Clark, we regard the painting as 'more a work of nature than a work of man'. And yet there is a very human story behind this artistic 'miracle', which was created against the backdrop of momentous events both in Milan and in the life of Leonardo himself.In Leonardo and the Last Supper, Ross King tells the complete story of this creation of this mural: the adversities suffered by the artist during its execution; the experimental techniques he employed; the models for Christ and the Apostles that he used; and the numerous personalities involved - everyone from the Leonardo's young assistants to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan who commissioned the work. Ross King's new book is both a record of Leonardo da Vinci's last five years in Milan and a 'biography' of one of the most famous works of art ever painted.

Author : Martin Kemp,Robert B. Simon,Margaret Dalivalle
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2019-11-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9780192543295

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Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts by Martin Kemp,Robert B. Simon,Margaret Dalivalle Pdf

The Salvator Mundi is the first Leonardo painting to be discovered for over a century. Following its re-emergence, it played a leading role in the landmark Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London in 2011, after which it was purchased by a Russian oligarch. In 2017 it was auctioned by Christie's in New York, fetching the world record price of $450m, and now forms part of the collection of Louvre Abu Dhabi. The Salvator Mundi may be seen as the devotional counterpart to the Mona Lisa, having an extraordinary, communicative presence. The artist has reformed the very traditional subject matter in a number of ways. The elusiveness of Christ's expression suggests his spiritual origins beyond the world of the senses. The traditional sphere of the earth has been transformed into a rock-crystal orb and signifies a crystalline sphere of the heavens. In addition to its spiritual dimension, the image exploits Leonardo's optical knowledge and his growing sense of the illusiveness of seeing. Only the blessing hand is in reasonably sharp focus, with his features softly veiled. The scintillating curls of his hair are characterised in line with his theory that the physics of the curling of hair is analogous to vortex motion in water. This book looks at evidence of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi in the collections of Charles I and Charles II. It explores the appraisal of works by Leonardo at the Stuart courts, and proposes that how works attributed to Leonardo were first encountered and understood in seventeenth-century Britain would shape the wider evolution of Leonardo as a cultural icon. This volume gives a dramatic first-hand account of the modern-day discovery of the painting, from its purchase in a minor New Orleans auction house, to the cleaning of the picture that would disclose it as Leonardo's startling original, and the research processes that would uncover illustrious and obscure former owners. The book presents the definitive study of the new masterpiece.

Author : Ben Lewis
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2019-06-25
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781984819253

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The Last Leonardo by Ben Lewis Pdf

An epic quest exposes hidden truths about Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the recently discovered masterpiece that sold for $450 million—and might not be the real thing. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the early sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings, and sheikhs. Ben Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Amsterdam, Moscow, and New Orleans; to the galleries, salerooms, and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across six centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, in which we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth. Praise for The Last Leonardo “The story of the world’s most expensive painting is narrated with great gusto and formidably researched detail in Ben Lewis’s book. . . . Lewis’s probings of the Salvator’s backstory raise questions about its historical status and visibility, and these lead in turn to the fundamental question of whether the painting is really an autograph work by Leonardo.”—Charles Nicholl, The Guardian “As the art historian and critic Ben Lewis shows in his forensically detailed and gripping investigation into the history, discovery and sales of the painting, establishing the truth is like nailing down jelly.”— Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times

Author : Anthony M. Amore,Tom Mashberg
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2011-07-05
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780230337428

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Stealing Rembrandts by Anthony M. Amore,Tom Mashberg Pdf

Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg's Stealing Rembrandts is a spellbinding journey into the high-stakes world of art theft Today, art theft is one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the world, exceeding $6 billion in losses to galleries and art collectors annually. And the masterpieces of Rembrandt van Rijn are some of the most frequently targeted. In Stealing Rembrandts, art security expert Anthony M. Amore and award-winning investigative reporter Tom Mashberg reveal the actors behind the major Rembrandt heists in the last century. Through thefts around the world - from Stockholm to Boston, Worcester to Ohio - the authors track daring entries and escapes from the world's most renowned museums. There are robbers who coolly walk off with multimillion dollar paintings; self-styled art experts who fall in love with the Dutch master and desire to own his art at all costs; and international criminal masterminds who don't hesitate to resort to violence. They also show how museums are thwarted in their ability to pursue the thieves - even going so far as to conduct investigations on their own, far away from the maddening crowd of police intervention, sparing no expense to save the priceless masterpieces. Stealing Rembrandts is an exhilarating, one-of-a-kind look at the black market of art theft, and how it compromises some of the greatest treasures the world has ever known.

Author : Vito Zani
Publisher : Rizzoli Universe Promotional Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2003-09
Category : Last Supper in art
ISBN : 0789310279

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Leonardo Da Vinci by Vito Zani Pdf

The Rizzoli Quadrifolio art series combines the most popular artists with authoritative text and a fresh, unique format destined to appeal to children and adults alike. Featuring sixteen pages that open up to four times the individual page size, this series allow the reader to delve into the details of individual paintings or see the horiztontal development in a fresco. With stunning color reproductions, expert commentary, and a revolutionary format, Rizzoli Quadrifolios is a pioneering art series. Following the success of Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel, Vincent van Gogh, Gustav Klimt and Caravaggio is Leonardo da Vinci: The Last Supper, a book dedicated to perhaps one of the most important and recognizable works of art ever created. Heralded as the Renaissance master's most important work, the reader is afforded extraordinary details of this quickly deteriorating fresco. Located in a small monastery in Milan, the work has recently been restored so that the delicate faces which register, with great subtlety, the gravity of the moment at which Christ announces to his apostles that one among them will betray him, are visible once again. Every inch of the work is reproduced here in illuminating close-ups so that the masterpiece can be appreciated anew.

Author : Francesca Fiorani
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page : 362 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2020-11-17
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780374715298

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The Shadow Drawing by Francesca Fiorani Pdf

"[The Shadow Drawing] reorients our perspective, distills a life and brings it into focus—the very work of revision and refining that its subject loved best." —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times | Editors' Choice An entirely new account of Leonardo the artist and Leonardo the scientist, and why they were one and the same man Leonardo da Vinci has long been celebrated for his consummate genius. He was the painter who gave us the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and the inventor who anticipated the advent of airplanes, hot air balloons, and other technological marvels. But what was the connection between Leonardo the painter and Leonardo the scientist? Historians of Renaissance art have long supposed that Leonardo became increasingly interested in science as he grew older and turned his insatiable curiosity in new directions. They have argued that there are, in effect, two Leonardos—an artist and an inventor. In this pathbreaking new interpretation, the art historian Francesca Fiorani offers a different view. Taking a fresh look at Leonardo’s celebrated but challenging notebooks, as well as other sources, Fiorani argues that Leonardo became familiar with advanced thinking about human vision when he was still an apprentice in a Florence studio—and used his understanding of optical science to develop and perfect his painting techniques. For Leonardo, the task of the painter was to capture the interior life of a human subject, to paint the soul. And even at the outset of his career, he believed that mastering the scientific study of light, shadow, and the atmosphere was essential to doing so. Eventually, he set down these ideas in a book—A Treatise on Painting—that he considered his greatest achievement, though it would be disfigured, ignored, and lost in subsequent centuries. Ranging from the teeming streets of Florence to the most delicate brushstrokes on the surface of the Mona Lisa, The Shadow Drawing vividly reconstructs Leonardo’s life while teaching us to look anew at his greatest paintings. The result is both stirring biography and a bold reconsideration of how the Renaissance understood science and art—and of what was lost when that understanding was forgotten.

Author : Martin Kemp
Publisher : Thames & Hudson
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2018-05-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780500774236

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Living with Leonardo: Fifty Years of Sanity and Insanity in the Art World and Beyond by Martin Kemp Pdf

Approaching the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, the world- renowned da Vinci expert recounts his fifty- year journey with the work of the world’s most famous artist A personal memoir interwoven with original research, Living with Leonardo takes us deep inside Leonardo da Vinci scholar Martin Kemp’s lifelong passion for the genius who has helped define our culture. Each chapter considers a specific work as Kemp offers insight into his encounters with academics, collectors, curators, devious dealers, auctioneers, and authors— as well as how he has grappled with legions of “Leonardo loonies,” treaded vested interests in academia and museums, and fended off fusillades of non- Leonardos. Kemp explains his thinking on the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, retells his part in the identification of the stolen Buccleuch Madonna, and explains his involvement on the two major Leonardo discoveries of the last 100 years: La Bella Principessa and Salvator Mundi. His engaging narrative elucidates the issues surrounding attribution,the scientific analyses that support experts’ interpretations, and the continuing importance of connoisseurship. Illustrated with the works being discussed, Living with Leonardo explores the artist’s genius from every angle, including technical analysis and the pop culture works he inspired, such as The Da Vinci Code, and his enduring influence 500 years after his death.

Author : Christopher Grey
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2010-05-11
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 9781439115640

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Leonardo's Shadow by Christopher Grey Pdf

Milan, 1497. The height of the Renaissance. And for Giacomo, servant of the famous painter Leonardo da Vinci, it's the most difficult time of all. His Master has been working on the Last Supper, his greatest painting ever, for nearly two years. But has he finished it? He's barely started! The all-powerful Duke of Milan is demanding that it be completed by the time the Pope visits at Easter. And Giacomo knows that if Leonardo doesn't pick up his pace, the Duke may invite a young genius -- Michelangelo -- to finish the painting instead. Which means that Leonardo won't be paid, which means that Milan's shopkeepers (to whom he owes massive amounts) will take drastic measures against him. It's all down to Giacomo, and whether he can come up with a brilliant solution. And if he does, will his Master go for it? After all, Leonardo still doesn't seem to trust him. He refuses to teach Giacomo how to paint; he won't help him find his parents; nor will he discuss the significance of the medallion, ring, and cross that Giacomo was carrying when Leonardo found him. But with the secret arrival of a powerful stranger, Giacomo is about to discover much more than the answers he has been looking for. And he will also receive an invitation to help arrange a meeting that could change his life. . . and the future course of history. With more twists and turns than a spiral staircase, this thriller is as unique as its two heroes -- the most celebrated artist who ever lived, and a young man without a past, who will stop at nothing to find the truth about his life.

Author : Carlo Bertelli
Publisher : St Pauls BYB
Page : 24 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 1983
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 8171098797

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The Last Supper by Carlo Bertelli Pdf

Author : Jonathan Petropoulos
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 455 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2021-01-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780300251920

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Goering's Man in Paris by Jonathan Petropoulos Pdf

A charged biography of a notorious Nazi art plunderer and his career in the postwar art world​ "[Petropoulos] brings Lohse into sharper focus, as a personality and axis point from which to explore a network of art dealers, collectors and museum curators connected to Nazi looting. . . . What emerges from Petropoulos's research is a portrait of a charismatic and nefarious figure who tainted everyone he touched."--Nina Siegal, New York Times "Readers of art history and WWII biographies will appreciate this engrossing deep dive into one of the world's most prolific art looters."--Publishers Weekly Bruno Lohse (1911-2007) was one of the most notorious art plunderers in history. Appointed by Hermann Göring to Hitler's art looting agency in Paris, he went on to help supervise the systematic theft and distribution of more than thirty thousand artworks, taken largely from French Jews, and to assist Göring in amassing an enormous private art collection. By the 1950s Lohse was officially denazified but was back in the art dealing world, offering masterpieces of dubious origin to American museums. After his death, dozens of paintings by Renoir, Monet, and Pissarro, among others, were found in his Zurich bank vault and adorning the walls of his Munich home. Jonathan Petropoulos spent nearly a decade interviewing Lohse and continues to serve as an expert witness for Holocaust restitution cases. Here he tells the story of Lohse's life, offering a critical examination of the postwar art world.

Author : Martin Kemp
Publisher : Callaway Arts & Entertainment
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Art
ISBN : 0935112820

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Leonardo by Leonardo by Martin Kemp Pdf

Published to coincide with Leonardo?s 500th anniversary commemoration in 2019, and written by Martin J. Kemp, one of the world?s leading authorities on Leonardo da Vinci, 'Leonardo by Leonardo' presents a gallery of the master's 27 existing paintings, as well as the preparatory drawings that formed the basis of his masterpieces. Martin J. Kemp?s narrative is accompanied by extensive written reflections by Leonardo, and is further highlighted by perspectives from his contemporaries. 0The utmost care and state-of-the-art digital capture technology has been applied to the new photography of the artworks presented in this collection. No expense has been spared to reproduce the artworks with the highest fidelity to colour, tone, and surface. The quality of imaging, ultra-fine resolution printing, archival paper, and binding has produced a book like no other.

Author : Jonathan Jones
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 427 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2012-10-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307961013

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The Lost Battles by Jonathan Jones Pdf

From one of Britain’s most respected and acclaimed art historians, art critic of The Guardian—the galvanizing story of a sixteenth-century clash of titans, the two greatest minds of the Renaissance, working side by side in the same room in a fierce competition: the master Leonardo da Vinci, commissioned by the Florentine Republic to paint a narrative fresco depicting a famous military victory on a wall of the newly built Great Council Hall in the Palazzo Vecchio, and his implacable young rival, the thirty-year-old Michelangelo. We see Leonardo, having just completed The Last Supper, and being celebrated by all of Florence for his miraculous portrait of the wife of a textile manufacturer. That painting—the Mona Lisa—being called the most lifelike anyone had ever seen yet, more divine than human, was captivating the entire Florentine Republic. And Michelangelo, completing a commissioned statue of David, the first colossus of the Renaissance, the archetype hero for the Republic epitomizing the triumph of the weak over the strong, helping to reshape the public identity of the city of Florence and conquer its heart. In The Lost Battles, published in England to great acclaim (“Superb”—The Observer; “Beguilingly written”—The Guardian), Jonathan Jones brilliantly sets the scene of the time—the politics; the world of art and artisans; and the shifting, agitated cultural landscape. We see Florence, a city freed from the oppressive reach of the Medicis, lurching from one crisis to another, trying to protect its liberty in an Italy descending into chaos, with the new head of the Republic in search of a metaphor that will make clear the glory that is Florence, and seeing in the commissioned paintings the expression of his vision. Jones reconstructs the paintings that Leonardo and Michelangelo undertook—Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari, a nightmare seen in the eyes of the warrior (it became the first modern depiction of the disenchantment of war) and Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina, a call to arms and the first great transfiguration of the erotic into art. Jones writes about the competition; how it unfolded and became the defining moment in the transformation of “craftsman” to “artist”; why the Florentine government began to fall out of love with one artist in favor of the other; and how—and why—in a competition that had no formal prize to clearly resolve the outcome, the battle became one for the hearts and minds of the Florentine Republic, with Michelangelo setting out to prove that his work, not Leonardo’s, embodied the future of art. Finally, we see how the result of the competition went on to shape a generation of narrative paintings, beginning with those of Raphael. A riveting exploration into one of history’s most resonant exchanges of ideas, a rich, fascinating book that gives us a whole new understanding of an age and those at its center.

Author : Walter Isaacson
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 624 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2017-10-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781501139178

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Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson Pdf

The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is “a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve it…Most important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life” (The New Yorker). Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson “deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo” (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius. In the “luminous” (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo’s delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci “comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson’s ambitious new biography…a vigorous, insightful portrait” (The Washington Post).

Author : Don Nardo
Publisher : Lucent Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : JUVENILE NONFICTION
ISBN : 1420507354

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Leonardo Da Vinci by Don Nardo Pdf

This book examines the life and art of Leonardo da Vinci.