CONTENTS

1. Cover
2. Front Matter
3. Acknowledgements
4. Plates
5. Introduction: unravelling a canvas
   1. Flights into Egypt: trajectories, rivalries and controversies
   2. The real: between material continuity and social discontinuity
   3. The objects of research: status, values and modes of behaviour
   4. Pulling on a loose thread
   5. Coda
   6. Notes
6. Book 1. History, domination and social magic
   1. Chapter 1. Self-evident facts and foundations of beliefs
      1. Notes
   2. Chapter 2. Domination and social magic
      1. The objective forms of domination
      2. A problem hidden beneath the fragmentation of points of view
      3. Capital or symbolic effects?
      4. Outline of a general theory of the magic of power
      5. Notes
   3. Chapter 3. Linked oppositions: dominators/dominated and sacred/profane
      1. A history of the linked transformations of power and the sacred
      2. Magic and power in stateless societies
      3. Magic and power in State societies
      4. The high and the low
      5. Political fictions or how man created God in his image
      6. Struggles for the appropriation of the sacred
      7. Secularization, sanctification and the sacred foundations of all society
      8. Notes
7. Book 2. Art, domination, sanctification
   1. Chapter 4. The expansion of the domain of the sacred: the emergence of art as an autonomous domain, separate from the profane
      1. Poets and artists, sovereigns and demiurges
      2. The history of a collective sanctification
      3. From relics to works of art
      4. The separation of art and life
      5. Admire first, interpret later
      6. Beneath admiration, domination
      7. The magic of paintings
      8. Fables and hoaxes
      9. Copies and forgeries
      10. Notes
   2. Chapter 5. Authentication and attribution
      1. Where to look for scientific truths?
      2. The expert: doing things with words
      3. Performative act I: the catalogue raisonné
      4. Performative act II: the exhibition
      5. Attributions and disattributions: controversies and changes of opinion
      6. The history and logic of attributionism
      7. Science in the service of the sacred
      8. Taking the ‘obvious’ out of the authentic
      9. Notes
8. Book 3. On Poussin and some Flights into Egypt
   1. Chapter 6. Sublime Poussin: master of French classicism
      1. Journey of an artist against time and tide: independence and creative freedom
      2. Painter-philosopher and artist
      3. On Poussin’s success
      4. To art, a nation’s gratitude
      5. Notes
   2. Chapter 7. The fabulous destiny of paintings attributed to Nicolas Poussin
      1. Links, associations and changes in status
      2. Histories of paintings
      3. The painting of a great painter whose talent is declining
      4. On the trail of an admirable painting
      5. Three canvases resurface
      6. A growing controversy
      7. New developments: the request for the annulment of the 1986 sale
      8. The acquisition of a national treasure
      9. In search of sponsors
      10. The magic of a masterpiece
      11. The end of a controversy
      12. The conditions of enchantment and disenchantment
      13. A version without an expert
      14. Notes
   3. Chapter 8. Poussin, science, law and the art market
      1. Poussin in the laboratory
      2. Poussin in court
      3. The price of a painting
      4. Notes
   4. Chapter 9. How each person plays their game
      1. Art historians: who has the eye?
      2. The gallery owners: playing (and losing) the game
      3. A museum director playing (and winning) her game
      4. Notes
9. Conclusions
   1. Working outside the fields
   2. At the root of beliefs
   3. Exposing the invisible monster
   4. A fragile learned game
   5. Notes
10. Post-scriptum: the conditions for scientific creation
    1. Notes
11. Summary of information sources consulted
12. Bibliography
13. Supplementary bibliography
14. Index
15. End User License Agreement

Guide

1. Cover
2. Table of Contents
3. Begin Reading