日批在线视频_内射毛片内射国产夫妻_亚洲三级小视频_在线观看亚洲大片短视频_女性向h片资源在线观看_亚洲最大网

chinadaily.com.cn
left corner left corner
China Daily Website

The art of the sleuth

Updated: 2013-07-02 11:15
By Mei Jia ( China Daily)

The art of the sleuth

Former FBI agent Robert King Wittman visits the country to promote the Chinese edition of his memoir. Photos Provided to China Daily

The art of the sleuth

Former FBI investigator Robert King Wittman has written a book about his career tracking down the world's top art thieves. Mei Jia reports on a world of gangsters, intrigue and very valuable artworks.

Former art crime investigator Robert King Wittman still remembers the time he retrieved the world's second largest crystal ball, which once belonged to Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The crystal ball, weighing 22.5 kg, was found in a young woman's bedroom in New Jersey in the United States, one year after it was stolen from a Philadelphia museum.

"The once-gorgeous exhibit was there on a dresser with a baseball cap on it," Wittman says. "She used the cap to shield it from the sunlight in case it acted as a conduit to start a fire."

During his 20 years with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wittman went undercover to mingle with gangsters and the mafia, and rescued stolen artworks and antiques worth more than $300 million in total.

The list of recovered artworks includes the Auguste Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement, Pearl Buck's manuscripts of the Pulitzer-winning The Good Earth, the original manuscript of United States Bill of Rights and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn's small 1630 Self-Portrait valued at $36 million.

Wittman recounts the stories behind these recoveries in his memoir, Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures. The book is written in a readable, entertaining style to alert the public to the importance of preserving cultural heritage.

"Once you lose it, basically, it's gone. Then you lose your history. And if you don't know where you came from, you'll repeat the mistakes," the former agent says.

The book was praised in The Washington Post, which wrote: "Almost every case he recounts has enough intrigue and suspense for a Hollywood screenplay."

The book has been released in Chinese by Hangzhou-based MatrixBook.

Wittman chronologically retells 15 stories from his career, "like a true crime story, weaving in a bit of history", he says.

Wittman wrote most of the book from memory, checking court records, media files and other sources to verify the details.

Born in 1955 in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and American father, Wittman's family moved to the US in 1958. Because of a lack of knowledge about Asian countries at that time, his mother was a victim of racial prejudice.

Related:

Tricks of the trade

After reading former FBI agent Robert King Wittman's book about tracking down art thieves, screenwriter and critic Shi Hang says Wittman is a real-life Indiana Jones. More

Q & A with the investigator

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page

 
 
...
...
...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 超碰丝袜 | 欧美天堂久久 | 欧美肥老太wbwbwbb | 91综合久久 | 欧美www | av在线不卡免费观看 | 午夜激情影院 | 欧美黄色小视频 | 第一av| 情侣av| 黄色大片在线播放 | 女人18毛片一区二区三区 | 九九影视理伦片 | 国产免费一区二区三区四在线播放 | 欧美第四页 | 日本成人一区二区 | 色综合网站 | 日韩欧美亚洲一区二区三区 | 老色鬼av | 日本成人免费在线视频 | www成人在线观看 | 一级片一级片一级片一级片 | 欧美成人一区二区三区 | 日韩字幕在线观看 | 欧美黄色短片 | 日韩欧美精品在线 | 国产成人精品123区免费视频 | 国产精品成人一区二区 | 四虎免费av | 午夜视频久久 | 国产精品视频一二三 | 春色av| 日韩精品中文在线 | 青青草福利视频 | 四虎永久在线观看 | 日韩精品一区不卡 | 91精品网 | 亚洲综合福利 | 国产一级特黄 | jizz日本大全 | 秋霞网一区二区 |