The Art Detective

October 25, 2010
Art historian Mould provides an accessible introduction to the world of art dealing, inviting the listener along as he tracks down the provenance of paintings—including a Thomas Gainsborough. His vignettes are fascinating, if slightly rambling, and they are deftly delivered by James Langton, whose crisp English accent coupled with an assertive, authoritative handling of the material proves delightful. He enlivens the more drab or technical sections and provides smooth transitions from English to American accents. A Viking hardcover.

May 1, 2010
An insider's look at the exciting and unpredictable"discovered masterpiece" side of the art world.

If the author's appearances on Antiques Roadshow have taught aspiring art collectors anything, it's that discovery is possible. Antique paintings are often unattributed or mislabeled, and that dusty Rembrandt look-alike at the flea market may well be the real thing, with centuries of pollution and poorly applied overpaint disguising it. Mould, a London gallery owner and art sleuth, tells his tale of a rags-to-riches Rembrandt, the restoration of which he calls"the boldest feat of detection and restoration I had ever heard sanctioned by an eminent academic." An engaging storyteller, the author describes several other adventures, all of which culminate in the affirmation of an authentic work. There was the emergence of an early Thomas Gainsborough, originally mislabeled at auction; the enthralling story of an unknown portrait of Elizabeth I, whose history was almost as intriguing as the painting itself; and a Homer watercolor that washed up in dump in Ireland, sending Mould on a trip through several countries before he was able to connect the dots of its provenance. In the most mysterious tale in the book, the author describes how a fake Norman Rockwell was not only touted as authentic in the Rockwell Museum, but that the painting was part of a plot concocted to hide the original during a nasty divorce. The Rockwell scam involved two generations, a masterful forgery and secret storage panels. Mould points out that art, and its pursuit,"can be extremely eloquent about human behavior," a theme to which he often returns in examining the"innumerable paths, dramas, challenges and characters" that make up the discovery market. The author also explores the nuances of connoisseurship, the delicate risks and startling rewards of restoration and the science of correctly identifying an unknown painting by an established master.

Informative and fun.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2010
Philip Mould is a British art dealer best known in the U.S for his appearances as an art appraiser on the PBS re-broadcasts of the original BBC series Antiques Roadshow, retitled Antiques Roadshow UK. Moulds real claim to fame, though, is as a finder of lost or misidentified art. Here he recounts, with considerable wit and charm, his adventures in the trade, and the stories behind his most noteworthy finds, among them a lost piece by Thomas Gainsborough and a watercolor by Winslow Homer. Mould writes like a born storyteller, revealing enough of his craft in these highly literate war stories to pull in the layman reader and inform those who want to know a little about identifying and restoring art works without bogging down his yarns with needless minutia. Remarkably, given Moulds stature in the world of art dealing, he devotes little space to self-congratulation, admirable modesty that makes his prose all the more endearing and the man all the more fascinating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)