Stealing the Mystic Lamb

A seventeenth-century Flemish painting so beautiful it cursed itself forever was the Ghent Altarpiece, or the Mystic Lamb. Painted in innovative detail onto 12 wooden panels by Jan van Eyck, the masterpiece earned uncommon fame throughout its peripatetic life. Author Noah Charney writes, "Since its completion in 1432, the altarpiece has disappeared, been looted in three different wars, and been burned, copied, forged, illegally sold, censored, attacked by iconoclasts, hidden away, ransomed, rescued, and stolen time and time again." Narrator John Allen Nelson sounds comfortable with the challenging vocabulary prevalent in central Europe from the Renaissance to the present. Nelson's forceful delivery demands attention to every word, taking on the format of a history lecture for those wearing earphones. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine