"Beautifully evokes a vanished world that once stood at the crossroads between the heights of civilization and the depths of barbarism before being overwhelmed by the latter. The restitution to Pauline Baer de Perignon's family of one of France's finest 18th-century masterpieces, through a harrowing process dramatically recounted in this book, goes some way to redeem the cause of civilization."

James Gardner, author of The Louvre: The Many Lives of the World’s Most Famous Museum