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Sotheby’s director and BBC Antiques Roadshow expert Philip Hook asks how far an art dealer can influence contemporary taste and what an artist paints, and looks at how big their influence has been on the history of art and modern art movements in particular.

Hook looks at the brilliant, cunning and daring art dealers of history, from those who sold paintings by weight in Imperial Rome to those dealing in the modern galleries of London and New York. The cast of characters includes tailors, spies, the occasional anarchist, scholars, aristocrats, merchants and connoisseurs variously motivated by greed, a vision of modern art or a simple will to win.

Hook is a board member and senior director of Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s. He has written five novels and many books on art, including Breakfast at Sotheby’s, widely chosen as a book of the year by national newspapers.