Priceless (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

People edit see section history

• Robert K. Wittman: Former FBI agent who founded the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Art Crime Team.
• Laurenz: A Parisian millionaire who had worked as an accountant for the mob in Paris. He made millions of dollars in Florida real estate after fleeing arrest in France.
• Gardner: Add a description of this character.
• Russell Albert Pritchard III: Con artist. Worked as an appraiser for Antiques Road Show, but planted people and antiques for maximum impact and exposure.
• Kostov
• Joshua Baer: Dealer of Native American artifacts, arrested for selling various artifacts made with Eagle feathers, including a Cheyenne headdress, a pair of Hopi wooden birds, and a rare and sacred Santo Domingo Corn Mother.
• Bazin
• Donna: Robert Wittman's wife.
• Pierre: A French undercover policeman who works with Wittman as they attempt to recover the paintings stolen in the Gardner heist.
• Garcia
• Patrick
• Fred: The FBI supervisor in Boston. He is hostile to Wittman and eventually tries to sabatoge his career.
• Denis
• Rodin
• Bob Clay: Robert Wittman's alias when he was operating undercover.
• Robert E. Goldman: An assistant US attorney who worked with Wittman to prosecute art crime.
• Andre
• Richardson
• Motyka
• Wilhite
• Mendez
• Vermeer
• Norman Rockwell
• Carneiro
• Sean: An FBI agent who was supposed to replace Wittman as Sunny and Laurenz's contact in the purchase of the Gardner paintings. He is rejected by the criminals.
• Wilson
• Husby
• Deming
• Eric Ives
• Mona Lisa
• Flores
• Torsella
• Geronimo
• Pickett
• Mike
• Latirenz
• Juno
• Larry
• Shih
• Koplowitz
• Lindberg
• Shotwell
• Gogh
• Lindgren
• Hall
• Harmelin
• George
• Sunny: A member of the mob in France. He had connections who were trying to sell the Gardner paintings.

Quotes edit see section history

• “In using my true first name, I was following a cardinal rule of working undercover: Keep the lies to a minimum.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• If someone likes the product, but doesn’t like you, they won’t buy it; if, on the other hand, they’re not crazy about the product, yet they like you, well, they may buy it anyway. In business, you have to sell yourself first. It’s all about impressions.

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• “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Who shall guard the guards?

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• “The artist must open our eyes to what unaided we could not see, and in order to do so he often needs to modify the familiar appearance of things and so make something which is, in the photographic sense, a bad likeness.” The greatest artists teach us how to perceive through the use of expression and decoration. They are scientists, manipulating color, line, light, space, and mass in ways that reveal human nature. “The artist gives us satisfaction by seeing far more clearly than we could see for ourselves.”

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• The simple act of putting paint on canvas or transforming iron into sculpture, whether by a French master or a first-grader, is a marvel of the human mind and creates a universal connection. All art elicits emotion. All art makes you feel.

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• Most stolen works are worth far more than their dollar value. They document reflections of our collective human culture. Ownership of a particular piece may change over decades and centuries, but these great works belong to all of us, to our ancestors and to future generations. For some oppressed and endangered peoples, their art is often the only remaining expression of a culture. Art thieves steal more than beautiful objects; they steal memories and identities. They steal history.

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• “People often suppose that there is some secret about art, some password which must be divulged before they can discover its purpose or meaning,” Barnes wrote. “Absurd as such an idea is, it contains the important truth that seeing is something which must be learned, and not something which we all do as naturally as we breathe.” He called this “learning to see.”

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• provenance (the ownership history of a work of art) and provenience (information about the spot where an antiquity came out of the ground).

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• Museum heists may grab the big headlines, but they represent only a tenth of all art crime. Statistics presented by the Art Loss Register in Courmayeur showed that 52 percent of all pilfered works are taken from private homes and organizations with little or no fanfare. Ten percent are stolen from galleries and 8 percent from churches. Most of the rest is spirited away from archaeological sites.

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• The Art in Painting, by our benefactor, Dr. Albert C. Barnes.

  Highlighted by 36 Kindle customers

• In art crime, 90 percent of museum thefts are inside jobs.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Miami, FL
• Philadelphia
• France
• Paris
• Washington
• United States
• North Carolina
• Boston
• Spain
• Madrid
• Europe
• Pennsylvania
• New York
• Csizmazia
• Brazil
• Raleigh
• Rio
• Florida
• Baltimore
• Harrisburg
• Minneapolis
• Peruggia
• Italy
• Medford
• Copenhagen
• Hollywood
• Los Angeles
• Marseilles
• Warsaw
• New Jersey
• Stockholm
• Colorado
• Gettysburg
• South America
• Sweden
• London
• Panama
• Japan
• Tokyo
• New Mexico

First Sentence edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Robert K. Wittman (Author)
2. John Shiffman (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 364.16287

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction › True Accounts › True Crime
• Books › Arts & Photography › Reference › Business of Art