Leonardo's holy child: the discovery of a Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece : a connoisseur's search for lost art in America : a memoir of discovery

Abstract

Fred Kline is a well-known art historian, dealer, connoisseur, and explorer who has made a career of scouring antique stores, estate sales, and auctions looking for unusual and often misidentified works of art. Many of the gems he has found are now in major museum collections like the Frick, the Getty, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. About ten years ago, when Kline was routinely combing through a Christie's catalog, a beautiful little drawing caught his eye. Attributed to Carracci, it came with a very low estimate, but Kline's every instinct told him that the attribution was wrong. He placed a bid and the low asking price and bought the drawing outright. And that was the beginning of how Kline discovered Leonardo da Vinci's model drawing for the Infant Jesus and the Infant St. John.

Contents

Part I. Leonardo's Holy Child -- The discovery (purchasing drawing at Christie's auction; FRK background) -- Two miracles (Jann's Peruzzi) -- The pursuit of connoisseurship (close examination of Holy Child) -- Leonardo's Codex of one sheet (summation) -- Part II. A search for lost art in America -- The lost Virgin of the new world (New World Virgin Mary) -- Wandering paintings in search of an author (George Caleb Bingham) -- Paradise Brueghel and the French spider (Jan Brueghel the Elder) -- Wild Bill Hickok, gunfighter and poet (Wild Bill Hickok) -- A masterpiece for my brother (Joseph Anton Koch) -- The divine beauty of nature (Gottlieb Schick) -- The master and the monster (Lawren Harris) -- Around the world again with General Grant (William Coulter) -- The Genesis Cross (New World Cross) -- Aaron of Exodus, Magus in the wilderness (Pier Francesco Mola) -- A Vermeer discovery (Saint Praxedis)