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The Vanishing Velázquez

a 19th-century Bookseller's Obsession With a Lost Masterpiece
Jun 26, 2017SRZ37 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This is a feast for art lovers, a biography of the great Spanish artist Diego Velazquez (1599-1660), intense description and criticism of his works, plus the added intrigue of a supposed lost early Velazquez painting of Charles I, painted in 1623 when Charles spent a brief time in Madrid at the court of Philip IV, where Velazquez was both court painter and government functionary. It's also the story of John Snare, an antiquarian printer and book dealer, who finds the painting in mid-19th century England and spends the rest of his life fighting to prove it's a genuine Velazquez, dying in poverty in New York City. This feast of a book can be hard to read and make sense of sometimes because of its inter-threading of Velazquez biography, art analysis, Hapsburg history and politics. But if you like a good story, it's worth it.