Art Intrigue at the Highest Level | Masterpiece

book: Masterpiece | Thomas Hoving

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	• Masterpiece Thomas Hoving Simon and Schuster, 1986 - 321 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Diverting Romp Through the Art World

I have read and loved most of Thomas Hoving's nonfiction work, False Impressions, Making the Mummies Dance, etc. and loved it, but I was hesitant to try out his fiction. Now I'm glad I did. Sometimes over the top but almost always a diverting romp through the New York art scene that I love so much!

Art Intrigue at the Highest Level

After hundreds of years hidden away by an aristocratic English family, Velasquez's painting of his mistress is suddenly put up for auction. A bevy of art collectors and museum directors vie to win this beauty. At the top of the list of those competing are Olivia Cartwright the acting director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Andrew Foster the director of Washington DC's National Gallery. The painting is being offered at a staggering price which will set an all time record. Who will win her? Alas, no one in this novel is who he actually appears to be. Machinations are rife. So is romance. Is the painting even genuine. This is a delightful intrigue for those interested in art. Along the way interesting tidbits are sprinkled of museum gossip and art history.

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One of the world's finest art treasures, a beautiful, sensual nude portrait by the Spanish master Diego Velazquez, is uexpectedly put up for auction. The art world reacts greedily. Every major museum and the wealthiest and stealthiest private collectors passionately want the painting, the last truly great one by the master in private hands. Even the Soviets are conspiring to acquire it. This brings the CIA and the U.S. National Security Agency into the plots and counterplots. The Mafia and a mysterious Sicilian nobleman hold hidden cards. Some who wish to possess the beautiful Marchesa, it appears, will stop at nothing. Two of the contenders are the dashing director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., who yearns to run the Metropolitan, and an ambitious and attractive young woman, the Metropolitan's acting director, who sees the acquisition as a means of furthering her career and securing the job of director (something some of her own board members want to deny her). The two are deeply suspicious of each other. They meet in Paris two weeks before the sale. As they vigorously compete for the masterpiece, they find themselves falling in love; they try to keep their personal and professional lives separate -- with fascinating results.

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