If The Paintings Could Talk..

This is not your usual art gallery guide. Instead this volume gets you up close and personal to individual masterpieces in the National Gallery, London.

    DISCOVER THE EXTRAORDINARY SECRET LIVES OF PAINTINGS

    Meet some of the colourful characters captured in portraits and the people who gave these treasures to the Nation.

    Read about the paintings that took flight down a mountainside, a vanishing artist and the paintings that conceal other paintings, only to be discovered years later.

    This book unlocks the hidden histories of masterpieces in the National Gallery.

    Immerse yourself in a treasury of facts, discoveries and anecdotes.

    Many are touching, some are highly amusing and others are startling, but all are great reading.

    To download and view a selection of spreads from this publication,please click here  

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    'A picture is something which requires as much knavery, trickery and deceit as the perpetration of a crime.'
  Edgar Degas

    REVIEWS:  "Packed with interest, this work is a rarity: an art book that will be read."- Christopher Hirst, Independent, 23rd January 2009  

  “Michael Wilson breathes new life into our understanding of the nation's finest collection of paintings and will make us all look at works of art difference. Lovers of art and culture will relish this.” - Bill Spence, Gazette and Herald (Ryedale and Scarborough)  

      • A fantastic way into the National Gallery Collection for those new to art as well as new information for experienced art lovers to enjoy.

    • A fascinating miscellany of facts, quotations and tales combine with engrossed in an alternative tour of the great art and artists in the National Gallery, London

    • Preface written by well-known author, television and radio broadcaster Andrew Marr

      About the authors:
  Michael Wilson is former head of Exhibitions and Display at the National Gallery, London.
  He wrote the exhibition catalogue for Rebels and Martyrs (2006).

    Andrew Marr, is a BBC journalist and political commentator.  He is author of A History of Modern Britain (2007, Pan Macmillan)