Charney, Noah

"The book will guide its readers through a brief series of masterpieces of Western art--from cave paintings to sharks in formaldehyde. This book's twelve chapters teach readers about art, the art trade, and art history in a thorough (though concise) fashion. Each chapter is linked to one notable masterpiece, with references to others, giving readers a fixed, digestible number of objects that they will get to know in depth, and which they can use as a lens to understand the thousands of other, related objects that they might encounter in the future"--Amazon.

Collects essays that examine art crimes throughout history, discussing cases of vandalism, iconoclasm, forgery, fraud, war-time looting, archeological looting, smuggling, ransom, and more.