Unmasking the Forger: The Dossena Deception

First edition, first impression.  xii, 196pp, with one section of black and white plate illustrations.  Black publisher’s cloth-covered boards, gilt-stamped lettering on the spine.  8vo.  Cloth slightly pushed at spine ends else neat, clean, bright and tight throughout.  In its original shelf worn dust wrapper, a little bumped along extreme edges.

The sensational story of one of the most versatile forgers of all time – Dossena’s creations in marble, bronzer and terracotta were in many important institutional collections before he was exposed as a fraud.  By the time of his death in 1937, it was estimated that collectors had paid over $3 million for his output, and yet he died a poor man in a charity hospital, and the real villains of the story are the middle-men, the dealers, who were never slow to play shady tricks in a corrupt world.