Here’s a peak at the shelf where I keep the books I’ve acquired for research during the process of writing Penitent Magdalene:
What Great Paintings Say: 100 Masterpieces in Detail by Rainer & Rose-Marie Hagen
Look Again: How to Experience the Old Masters by Ossian Wa
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St Clair
Painting in Britain: 1530-1790 by Ellis Waterhouse
Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England by Marcia Pointon
Placing Faces: The portrait and the English Country House in the Long Eighteenth Century by Gill Perry, Kate Retford, and Jordan Vibert
Great Houses of Europe by Sacheverell Sitwell
The Fate of the English Country House by David Littlejohn, Sheila Littlejohn
In Celebration: The Art of the Country House by Karen Hearn, Robert Upstone, and Giles Waterfield
Old Master Drawings From Chatsworth by Christie's
The Garden at Chatsworth by Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish Devonshire
Art Restoration: The Culture, the Business, the Scandal by James Beck with Michael Daley
Conservation at the Art Institute of Chicago by Frank Zuccari and Harriet Stratis
A Closer Look: Conservation of Paintings by David Bomford, Jill Dunkerton, and Martin Wyld
Conservation: MFA Highlights by Richard Newman
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo
Fakes and Forgeries: Catalogue of an Exhibition by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World by Anthony M. Amore
Sotheby's: Bidding for Class Paperback by Robert Lacey
Sotheby's: The Inside Story by Peter Watson
The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby’s-Christie’s Auction House Scandal by Christopher Mason
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman, and John Shiffman
The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick
The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece Paperback by Jonathan Harr
Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane by Andrew Graham-Dixon
Caravaggio: The Final Years by Silvia Cassani, and Maria Sapio
The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace
In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire by Peter Hellman, abd Charles Constant
If you’re wanting to check out any of these books for yourself, I’ve compiled a list!