"Originally published in Great Britain in 2016 as "The Vanishing Man" -- Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-287) and index.

"From one of the world's foremost art critics, the . . . true story -- part art history and part mystery -- of a provincial Victorian bookseller whose fate was forever changed by his devotion to a lost masterpiece. At a liquidation auction in 1845, John Snare came across a dirt-blackened portrait of Charles I of England that defied explanation. The Charles of the painting was young -- too young to have been painted by the Flemish painter to whom the work was attributed. Snare had found something incredible -- but what? His research brought him to Diego Velázquez, the Spanish master whose long-lost portrait of Prince Charles had eluded art experts for generations. But in making his theory public, Snare was ostracized, brought to trial for fraud, and forced to choose between art and family. Following both men's fortunes while simultaneously trying to track down the elusive painting itself, Laura Cumming has written a thrilling investigation into the unshakable determination that drives both artists and collectors of their work. Traveling from the extravagant Spanish courts of the 1600s to the gritty streets and courtrooms of nineteenth-century London and New York, 'The Vanishing Velázquez' is a tale of mystery and detection, of tragic mishaps and mistaken identities, of class, politics, crime, and passion. It is a . . . testimony to how and why great works of art can affect us even to the point of mania." -- Dust jacket.