The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art

Feliciano focuses on five major collections--of the Rothschilds, the Paul Rosenbergs, the Bernheim-Jeunes, the David-Weills and the Schlosses--to illustrate how Nazis (and many others) took advantage of anti-Jewish laws to confiscate Jewish art. Between ideological programs (such as Otto Kummel's list of German art in France to be repatriated), the personal rapaciousness of officials (Goering being a particularly famous example) and the greed of collaborators such as the Parisian antique dealers Yves Perdoux and Cunt de Lestang, major works were dispersed, sold for profit and, on occasion, destroyed. The fate of cultural artifacts in France during the occupation has been Feliciano's preoccupation for some time, and he has certainly done his legwork, tracking down original owners of such works as Leger's Woman in Red and Green at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris. The problem is, he doesn't seem to quite believe that his subject is important. The result is a style that is sometimes breathless, sometimes self-aggrandizing, whether in declarations such as ""I took a deep breath""; the praises for his own work (he likens his book to ""the discovery of an archipelago""); or generally excitable prose. Also, Feliciano is first and foremost a journalist (he is a contributor to the L.A. Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times), and the longer book length shows up jarring jumps in chronology and an overall choppiness. This is a slightly augmented translation by the author of his own book, published in Paris in 1995. (June)