Possession
The Curious History of Private Collectors from Antiquity to the Present
1st Edition
Published on 24. May 2016
192 pages
978-0-300-22100-8 (ISBN)
Available for download
Description
Whether it's the discovery of $1.6 billion in Nazi-looted art or the news that Syrian rebels are looting UNESCO archaeological sites to buy arms, art crime commands headlines. Erin Thompson, America's only professor of art crime, explores the dark history of looting, smuggling, and forgery that lies at the heart of many private art collections and many of the world's most renowned museums. A Enlivened by fascinating personalities and scandalous events, Possession shows how collecting antiquities has been a way of creating identity, informed by a desire to annex the past while providing an illicit thrill along the way. Thompson's accounts of history's most infamous collectors-from the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who stole a life-sized nude Greek statue for his bedroom, to Queen Christina of Sweden, who habitually pilfered small antiquities from her fellow aristocrats, to Sir William Hamilton, who forced his mistress to enact poses from his collection of Greek vases-are as mesmerizing as they are revealing.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
07/2016
Yale University Press
€34.11
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Erin Thompson is assistant professor in the Department of Art and Music at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY.
Content
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Powers and Perils of the Antique: The Birth of Collecting
- 2 Collecting Identities
- 3 "By Means of a Little Castration": Restoration and Manipulation
- 4 Irresistible Forgeries
- 5 The Privileges of Lovers: Erotic Connections with Antiquities
- 6 Collecting Others
- 7 The History of Looting and Smuggling-and What They Destroy
- 8 Collectors' Failed Justifications for Looting and Smuggling
- 9 Conclusion: Collecting to Save the Past
- Notes
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Z
