Goldberg's Angel: An Adventure in the Antiquities Trade
by Hofstadter, Dan
- Used
- Fine
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Fine/Fine
- ISBN 10
- 0374105073
- ISBN 13
- 9780374105075
- Seller
-
Santa Barbara, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994. ix, 241 pages; 22 cm. Tight, clean copy. Stated First Edition. Dust jacket protected in a mylar cover. A fine copy of the first printing. On the theft of mosaics from a Byzantine church in Cyprus. "This book relates the adventures of a Midwestern art dealer who, on a trip to Europe, bought four rare Early Christian mosaics, including one luminous depiction of an angel with which she fell in love. It is also the work of a writer telling his own story - a writer who, as he tried to explore the shady side of the lawsuit brought by the Republic of Cyprus against Peg Goldberg for the return of the mosaics, found himself drawn into a bizarre underworld where antiquities are bought, sold, stolen, smuggled, and disowned. In Indianapolis, Peg Goldberg lost possession of her angel, yet the plaintiff's victory only deepened the mysteries. In Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna, and Cyprus, where Dan Hofstadter tried to chase down the facts ("I couldn't find people, they couldn't find me, we fixed appointments somewhere in a vast night filled with the fragrance of jasmine, radios wailing lovesick balladry, murmurous tides of chatter and laughter"), he was told amazing half-truths by picturesque characters in odd situations. It grew harder and harder to answer the most basic questions: How had the plundered mosaics come on the market? Why did government authorities seem so ignorant of smugglers operating under their noses, and American museums seem so curiously well informed? Had a flamboyant Dutch middleman cut a deal on the side? Who was the Serbian 'engineer' who called himself Benjamin and knew so much? And was the unseen Turk who had sold Peg the angel really a state archaeologist, or was he several people, or nobody at all? Goldberg's Angel - part legal thriller, part mystery, part hilarious chronicle of wildly complicated monkeyshines - celebrates the unaccountable beauty and power of the art treasures we daily buy and sell. More, it revels in the dark comedy of our eternal need to embellish, distort, and sidestep the truth." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo. Collectible.
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Details
- Bookseller
- LEFT COAST BOOKS (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 002231
- Title
- Goldberg's Angel: An Adventure in the Antiquities Trade
- Author
- Hofstadter, Dan
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Fine
- Edition
- 1st
- ISBN 10
- 0374105073
- ISBN 13
- 9780374105075
- Publisher
- Farrar Straus Giroux
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1994
- Size
- 8vo
- Keywords
- COLLECTIBLE
- Bookseller catalogs
- XXX / COLLECTIBLES; Art Market; European / Greek; Art Crime;
Terms of Sale
LEFT COAST BOOKS
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
LEFT COAST BOOKS
Biblio member since 2016
Santa Barbara, California
About LEFT COAST BOOKS
Established in Santa Barbara, California, in 2004, Left Coast Books specializes in ART BOOKS, offering thousands of titles on painting, sculpture, graphic arts, architecture, design, photography, film, video, and performance art. We also sell classics, literature, history, and a broad variety of useful academic books.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.