{"id":3434,"date":"2006-04-04T01:09:10","date_gmt":"2006-04-04T01:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/the-lost-painting.html"},"modified":"2006-04-04T01:09:10","modified_gmt":"2006-04-04T01:09:10","slug":"the-lost-painting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/the-lost-painting.html","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Painting"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the way over here (Columbia, SC) , I read The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece<\/em><\/a>, lent to me by my dad as we passed through Knoxville this afternoon. \"Lost\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

It’s an easy read, good for library rats like me who like to read about other library rats doing research of one type or another. Among the several "lost" Caravaggios – paintings which we know were executed, but, well…lost, was one called The Taking of the Christ.<\/em> Various records of it existed, including its sale to a Scotsman in the early 19th century, but after that, it drops out of sight. Where was it?<\/p>\n

What makes the book interesting is that it doesn’t begin with this question. It begins with research that eventually, inadvertently, helped confirm that this painting was, indeed, a Caravaggio – research done by two Italian students as they assisted in a project to ascertain which John the Baptist<\/em> – the one in the Doria-Pamphili, or the one in the Capitolini – <\/a>is actually a Caravaggio, and which a copy. <\/p>\n

In the process they stumble upon notations on the Taking of the Christ<\/em> in various ledgers and account books of a Roman family archive, and follow the trail. They are not the ones who actually discover the painting, but their work helps confirm its identity.<\/p>\n

It’s a relatively quick read, a bit like a padded New York Times Magazine <\/em>article (which is where the author first wrote about this, so ..yeah) , but with its fair share of tension, art-world rivalries and disagreements, and Italian eccentricity. <\/p>\n

It’s astonishing to me, because I’m lame, to read about Caravaggio’s life and doings around Rome – his dwellings around San’Agostino, his fights at Piazza Navona – and to think…I’ve been there!…<\/em>and to know that what’s there today maintains so much continuity with the scene four hundred years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the way over here (Columbia, SC) , I read The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, lent to me by my dad as we passed through Knoxville this afternoon. It’s an easy read, good for library rats like me who like to read about other library rats doing research of one type…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Lost Painting - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/the-lost-painting.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Lost Painting - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On the way over here (Columbia, SC) , I read The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, lent to me by my dad as we passed through Knoxville this afternoon. It’s an easy read, good for library rats like me who like to read about other library rats doing research of one type…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/the-lost-painting.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-04-04T01:09:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/lost.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Lost Painting - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/04\/the-lost-painting.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Lost Painting - Via Media","og_description":"On the way over here (Columbia, SC) , I read The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, lent to me by my dad as we passed through Knoxville this afternoon. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}