In 2004, two paintings, a little inspiring Raphael Madonna and an equally little inspiring Duccio Madonna were sold for prices totaling over 100 million dollars. The first, known as the Madonna of the Pinks, was bought by London’s National Gallery and the second, sometimes called the Stoclet Duccio, by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The way in which the attributions to their famous authors was achieved, graphically demonstrates the crisis facing modern connoisseurship in today’s billion dollar art world. The two objects represent an expenditure of public money for pictures the size of a sheet of paper. The book explains where and why the Connoisseurship went wrong, and seeks to establish guidelines for correcting the process. In the exercise, the author rigorously studies the two pictures and determines that both are fakes created in the 19th century.

James H. Beck (May 14, 1930 – May 26, 2007) was an American art historian specialising in the Italian Renaissance. He was an outspoken critic of many high-profile restorations and re-attributions of artworks, and founded the pressure group ArtWatch International to campaign against irresponsible practices in the art world.