Starting with a blank canvas

RICK GEKOSKI’s book, Lost, Stolen or Shredded, is an expertly told tale of the shadowy world of books, manuscripts and artworks that have disappeared.

Of the vanished masterpieces, some, such as the Mona Lisa, stolen from the Louvre in 1911, happily turned up again, but Gekoski includes items such as the first poem written by James Joyce, when he was nine and published by his proud father in a limited edition. No known copy survives.

Each of Lost, Stolen or Shredded’s 15 chapters is an individual story, ranging from the bronze sculptures looted from the royal palace at Benin, in the 19th century, to the destruction of much of Iraq’s cultural heritage. Gekoski describes wonderful ‘buildings’, designed by the Scottish architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but never built. He recounts the disappearance, and recovery, of the Urewera Mural, a large painting by one of New Zealand’s most famous artists, sparked by a long-simmering dispute over the ownership of Maori territories.