Art Restoration

In the great art capitals of the world, museums are restoring their collections on a wholesale basis. Much of what is being done is radical and irreversible— yet in a few years may seem tragically misguided.

James Beck and Michael Daley discuss the recent restoration of three Renaissance masterpieces; they examine the increasingly commercial factors behind the wave of restorations; and they show why the art world is waking up to the urgent need to reassess what is happening.

"[Beck discusses the issues with] clarity and passion. . . . [He] has done a valuable service to everyone who cares about the art of the past." —Charles Hope, New York Review of Books

James Beck is professor of art history at Columbia University. Michael Daley is a journalist and an artist in England.

1995 / paperback / ISBN 0-393-31297-6 / Photographs / 272 pages / ART HISTORY

• The authors are directors of ArtWatch International. For the paperback edition, they have added new material on the Mona Lisa, the Barnes Foundation, and the Last Judgment fresco restoration in the Sistine Chapel.