Opis
Recounts the breakneck competition among the powerful art museums of the world to verify the authenticity of and to acquire the unique tenth-century Winchester Cross.
King of the Confessors is the kind of book that might have inspired Dan Brown to write a suspense novel about an art historian. It’s actually a memoir about Thomas Hoving and the museum that employed him in his quest for a work of art. Along the way you learn something of the world of museums and art historians during the early 1960s. Hoving is a successful man of that era (when tall, white men with the right connections unabashedly ruled the world–at least in New York City). It is a long, rather self-indulgent book by today’s standards (a museum curator doesn’t have enough celebrity to be published in hard back today). The story reveals a lot about recovery of art stolen during World War II, and the less than legitimate methods museums used to add to their collections. I enjoyed following Hoving’s research and discovery about the ivory cross. The cross turns out, despite its beauty and craftsmanship, to contain a disheartening coded message.
