The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
Books | Fiction / Literary
3.8
Dominic Smith
“Written in prose so clear that we absorb its images as if by mind meld, “The Last Painting” is gorgeous storytelling: wry, playful, and utterly alive, with an almost tactile awareness of the emotional contours of the human heart. Vividly detailed, acutely sensitive to stratifications of gender and class, it’s fiction that keeps you up at night — first because you’re barreling through the book, then because you’ve slowed your pace to a crawl, savoring the suspense.” —Boston GlobeA New York Times BestsellerA New York Times Book Review Editor's ChoiceA RARE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PAINTING LINKS THREE LIVES, ON THREE CONTINENTS, OVER THREE CENTURIES IN THE LAST PAINTING OF SARA DE VOS, AN EXHILARATING NEW NOVEL FROM DOMINIC SMITH.Amsterdam, 1631: Sara de Vos becomes the first woman to be admitted as a master painter to the city’s Guild of St. Luke. Though women do not paint landscapes (they are generally restricted to indoor subjects), a wintry outdoor scene haunts Sara: She cannot shake the image of a young girl from a nearby village, standing alone beside a silver birch at dusk, staring out at a group of skaters on the frozen river below. Defying the expectations of her time, she decides to paint it.New York City, 1957: The only known surviving work of Sara de Vos, At the Edge of a Wood, hangs in the bedroom of a wealthy Manhattan lawyer, Marty de Groot, a descendant of the original owner. It is a beautiful but comfortless landscape. The lawyer’s marriage is prominent but comfortless, too. When a struggling art history grad student, Ellie Shipley, agrees to forge the painting for a dubious art dealer, she finds herself entangled with its owner in ways no one could predict.Sydney, 2000: Now a celebrated art historian and curator, Ellie Shipley is mounting an exhibition in her field of specialization: female painters of the Dutch Golden Age. When it becomes apparent that both the original At the Edge of a Wood and her forgery are en route to her museum, the life she has carefully constructed threatens to unravel entirely and irrevocably.
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More Details:
Author
Dominic Smith
Pages
304
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published Date
2016-04-05
ISBN
0374714045 9780374714048
Ratings
Google: 5
Community ReviewsSee all
"A surprisingly lovely book. I picked this up on a lark when doing some research for a project and found fascinating the author's interwoven tale of two women, a dirt-poor woman painter in 1600s and a struggling woman painter-forger depicted in 1958 and again in 2000. The storyline of the woman in 1600s was especially rich, with aspects reminiscent of the book, The Miniaturist, in terms of time and treatment of women. The book's ending is evocative."
Diane Morello
"DNF…I’ve had this on my TBR list forever, since I love historical fiction, particularly with a women-centric narrative. But the writing isn’t holding me captive like I would hope after finishing Part 1. It’s probably a me problem, I’ve DNF-ed more books this week than any week prior this year, so since I have a copy I’ll hold onto it in case I’m curious to see how it ends."
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Allie Peduto
"Overall, very enjoyable but it suffered from the over hyped syndrome. I expected to be amazed, so ultimately it was disappointing. It was a very good historical fiction, but I expected more. It made me realize how little I know about Dutch history though, (and my ancestors are VERY Dutch, I mean, my grandparents still spoke Dutch occasionally, so I’m a little ashamed) so it has made me want to learn more!"
