Cousin Pons

An old musician with no money and an unerring eye has quietly assembled one of the great private collections in Paris, and his relations, his concierge and a dealer all work out what it is worth some time before he does. Balzac wrote it in his last working year, exhausted and in debt. It is the cruelest book in the Human Comedy, and the friendship at the center of it is the tenderest thing he ever put on paper. Fifty-seven plates, from Daumier to Manet, follow the collectors, dealers and quiet rooms of the Paris Balzac knew.