Mortmain, the father, who spends his days shut in his study reading detective stories and has written nothing since publication of his obscure masterpiece, Jacob Wrestling, years before, is more figure of fun than hero.
While Goldin's book is now widely regarded as a pioneering classic of the raw, confessional style of photographic memoir, Fukase's work is described by the BJP as "an obscure masterpiece".
I have, however, deliberately dwelt on a couple of less-renowned works that I looked at in these opulent salons lately, because I want to stress that the real joy of the Wallace Collection is its curiosity and rich layers of famous and obscure masterpieces.
It's the one patently silly part of an episode that otherwise makes good on the promise of the first two seasons, and it obscures the small masterpiece in dramatic staging that follows.
Curtis, a former editor of Texas Monthly, is a literary detective (his previous book, on the Venus de Milo, also concerned the obscure provenance of an archaic masterpiece), and in quietly enthralling prose, without hurry or flamboyance, he spins two narratives.
There were obscure symbols, shiny gadgets, altered masterpieces, and purloined artefacts.
Today, this Venetian painter, lutenist and lover, who invented a new kind of pastoral erotic art, is comparatively obscure, and most of his masterpieces have been attributed to other people.
Scott's demeaned masterpiece was potted about with obscure railway offices lit by naked fluorescent tubes and separated by hastily knocked-up partition walls.
Susan Anspach is best known for her appearances with Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces" and Michael Douglas in "Running," but a more obscure European production, "Montenegro," may be her masterpiece.
The discoloration of marble, and in particular that of the Orsanmichele statues represents a broad and largely obscure issue, highlighting the vulnerability of these masterpieces.
