The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

by Dominic Smith

“Written in prose so clear that we absorb its images as if by mind meld, “The Last Painting” is gorgeous 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 Globe

A New York Times Bestseller

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

A 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 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 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.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Book Club, Art, Historical, Audiobook, Mystery

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 5, 2016

About the author

Dominic grew up in Sydney, Australia and now lives in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of five novels, including The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, a New York Times bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Dominic's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Chicago Tribune, Texas Monthly, The Australian, and The New York Times. He has received literature fellowships from the Australia Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches writing in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. More information can be found on his website: www.dominicsmith.net.

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Regrets come into our lives from our earliest moments until the very last. Sometimes they are as light as the wings of a butterfly causing but a brief pause. Other times they are heavy-ladden with pressure forcefully leaning on the heart. And the indescribable ache now takes up a permanent residence.

Dominic Smith presents his remarkable novel in time spans that drift from 1631 to 1957 to 2000. Each time period is layered expertly like parchment paper that settles oh so lightly allowing the reader to experience what came before and what is yet to come. The voice of this well-crafted story shifts from the experiential situations of each of his main characters. And those regrets are the framework upon which this canvas is spread.

Sara de Vos is a master painter living with her husband near Amsterdam in the 17th century. Although her husband is an artist as well, we come to realize what actually defines the term "master". Females were subjected to disregard in the field of art and were relegated to painting flowers. But then a tragedy strikes in Sara's life that transforms the feel of the brush as it touches canvas. "Sara brings her gaze back from the low fire beneath the cauldron. Will it ever go away? The anguish." What transpires here out is a masterpiece from the embers of her soul.

In New York City in 1957 Marty de Groot, a prominent lawyer, stands and admires the rich painting that has been in his family for hundreds of years. But it brings him no comfort and seems to drape a pallor over his marriage as well. He feels dissatisfaction with his life and with this landscape rendering entitled: At the Edge of a Wood. Ironically, Marty will no longer stand on the edge, but will venture into areas that he will long regret.

Unbeknownst to Marty, a young art historian grad student, Ellie Shipley, will no longer stand on the edge of her own existence and will leave footprints of regret as well. She finds herself involved in a one-time forgery scheme. And this single action on her part will cast a gripping shadow from this time forward. The seeds have been planted and the harvest is one tangled with the sins of deep transgressions.

By 2000 the paths of Marty and Ellie will cross. Ellie has become an expert in female painters of the Dutch Golden Age. "She often sees Sara in her dreams -- a woman in a bonnet, a sallow, slightly drawn expression, peering in through a window." All of their lives are no longer adrift, but on the same course. And you will view this collage of dark and light.

This was my first book by Dominic Smith. The writing is impressive and the storyline is multi-layered and read with deep satisfaction. Sometimes a book just speaks to you in its vivid language and in the artistry of the subject matter itself. This is one of them and a most memorable read.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This beautifully written book was a pleasure to read.

When I was in high school back in the olden days of the mid eighties we had an art teacher named Mr. Gonzalez. He was a cool guy, would tell jokes and liked to hang out with my crowd of ne’er do wells and also rans. My senior year he talked me and a friend into using our last elective for his class.

“But I don’t know anything about art appreciation, and no talent whatsoever,” I rebutted to his invitation. “That’s why you should take the class, it’ll be fun.” I mentioned to another teacher that I had signed up for Gonzalez’ class and they looked at me with a knowing smirk.

The joke was on the students, the class kicked our ass. Unbeknownst to most of us teenage rednecks and knuckle draggers in the small town Southern high school, Mr. Gonzalez took his class and its subject very seriously. I passed his tough assignments and later took an undergraduate level art appreciation class.

The good news is that there is a generation of us running around in Middle Tennessee with at least a passable knowledge of and an appreciation for art. This awareness helped me to a greater understating of this book’s subject, but even a reader with no art history background would find Smith’s writing entertaining.

With its intricate description of art history and technical detail of art construction this reminded me of Geraldine Brooks’ 2008 novel People of the Book. Author Dominic Smith uses alternating perspectives from three different place and time settings to tell his story of an obscure but important work from the 1600s Golden Age of Dutch Masters. The painting, At the Edge of a Wood, was created by Dutch artist Sara de Vos and is a vivid illustration of loss and haunted mourning. Smith tells de Vos’ story as well as the story from the 1950s of the paintings’ theft and forgery – replete with an investigation and a complex relationship between owner and conservationist. Finally, Smith describes the final confrontation of art historians in 2000 as the truth plays out.

A great element of this novel is the writer’s talented ability to paint a picture of a time and place. Seventeenth century Holland breathes with life; we feel the cold damp air and smell the simple, earthy atmosphere. Smith reveals de Vos’ world of guilds and archaic laws, we can understand the economic loss of a tulip boom gone bust. Likewise, Smith’s account of 1950s New York is alive with jazz and the discordant sights of a metropolis vibrant with a history of its own, we can hear the lap of Hudson waters as they caress a riverboat floating north to Harlem and taste beer and pizza from a bench looking at the Brooklyn Bridge.

The obvious parallels and connections between the times and places, and between the characters serve to more fully frame Smith’s narrative. Using the separations in time, Smith creates a dramatic irony that is endearing and hypnotic.

Smith’s use of the alternating perspectives and of the intricately drawn histories and interrelated dynamics of the players makes for a fascinating reading experience. The reader is drawn into the lives of the characters and the drama surrounding both the creation of the painting and the evolution of its ownership is compelling, thought provoking and intoxicating. I took my time reading this, enjoying every page. The ending is quietly brilliant.

A very well written and enjoyable novel.

[Jennifer Masterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know that it is only April but I might have found my favorite book of 2016! Holy cow was this brilliant! I've never heard of Dominic Smith before this book but he's a phenomenal writer and what a story this is! This novel has it all! Beautiful writing, well fleshed out characters, a wonderful story, and feels yes feels! I learned so much about the art world and about Dutch female painters in the 17th century. I listened to this book on audio. You know you are listening to a good audiobook when the writing is so equisite that you keep going back and listening to the chapters over and over again! The narration by Edoardo Ballerini is nothing shy of 5 stars!

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a novel about art, forgery, love and life lessons. The book has three intertwining stories taking place in three different continents in three different time periods: the 17th Century in Amsterdam, late 1950's in New York City and 2000 in Sydney. All of the stories I absolutely loved! My favorite being Sara de Vos (a fictionalized character. She was a composite of several different Dutch painters). Her story at times brought me to tears!

This book moves back and forth in time and from story to story seamlessly! The author does this masterfully. Not one time did I wonder what was going on. It was never awkward and for me it had a most satisfying conclusion!

Very highly recommended! I would not be the least surprised if this ends up on some top 10 lists of 2016!

Read it or listen to it but put it at the top of your list!

[Andrew Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1631 Sara de Vos is the first woman painter to be admitted to the Guild of St Luke’s in Holland. It’s the Dutch Golden Age, the time of Vermeer, Rembrandt and Hals. It’s unusual for women to paint anything other than still life, but Sara has produced a haunting winter scene which will be known as At the Edge of a Wood.

Skip forward to the late 1950’s, it’s New York and the painting sits above the bed of a rich middle aged lawyer, a descendent of the original owner. In Brooklyn, a young grad student is restoring paintings to earn some cash while she completes her doctoral thesis. She is approached by her usual contact with a request to undertake a painting task – but not a restoration this time.

Skip forward again, it’s post millennium and we are in Sydney, the home town of the young student we met earlier. Events are about to catch up with her. At the Edge of a Wood is being lent to the Sydney Art Gallery and events that were set in motion over forty years ago are about to come home to roost.

The story moves back and forth between the dates as it slowly unfolds. There’s tension and a genuine feeling of not knowing how it’s all going to play out, but the character development is well handled too and by the end I really cared for all of the key players. In truth, the story of Vos was probably the element I least enjoyed reading but I also felt it packed the biggest punch.

This book put me in mind of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (a book I loved), not just because the tracking of a well known painting is at the heart of the narrative, but also because the mood and the quality of writing is comparable. It’s a very different tale, but in terms of it’s impact it had a similar effect on me. There are some superb descriptive passages: I can recall one depicting a jazz band as they perform a number in a 50’s jazz club and another of a man’s feeling of being in synch with the street as he wonders along taking in what’s happening around him.

It’s a tale of what enriches a life, and of relationships and family. It’s about regrets and the long term impacts of decisions we make. And it’s about second chances. It’s all of these things and more. It’s superbly done by an author new to me. If you enjoyed The Goldfinch or even if you didn’t but appreciate a well structured story with characters that have real depth, then give this one a chance. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

My sincere thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update: This just went on sale for $2.99 today -- Kindle special. Great deal!


Gorgeous descriptions from the very beginning.....to the very end!!!
At times I felt I was in the same room with Ellie.....I could relate to her rebellious spirit. Other times, I was completely enchanted by the framing restoration details itself.
The relationship between women & 'prejudice' when it came to art was such a puzzle and 'tragic'. I thought of "The Blazing World", by Siri
Hustvedt - who went to great extremes in her novel to explore the deceptive powers of
unfairness - money - fame - and desire.

With two women linked from two different eras of history...we embrace their pain, feel their loss - their love -and understand their secrets.

The mystery we want to know: why the forgery? Who is it intended for? And where is it?
I lost myself completely in this luminous historical tale.

Audiobook -- great!

[Canadian Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here we have it: my authentic review. It has not been forged in any way, but a 17th century painting has and it's about to come into contact with the real one 40 years later.

The narrative starts with the artist herself and the inspiration or more accurately, the grief, for the painting. The story then moves to the latest owner, Marty, and the switcharoo that happens during a dinner party only to be discovered months later it's a fraud. The story then moves to the artist, Ellie, who was hired to create the replica. The story shifts in time from the 17th century to the 20th and 21st.
Interesting and detailed focus on the process of painting and the suppression artists were under being members of the guild in the 1600's..
The writing was marvellous and the art itself fascinating. Clearly, Smith has a talent as I could visualize these works as if they hung on my own wall. I was most charmed by the artist's story and the feelings, emotions tied into the fluid strokes of a brush.
Overall, it was 4* but could have been higher had it gained more traction earlier on.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars.
As was the case in The Goldfinch, an enigmatic 17th century Dutch painting is the focus of everything that happens in this novel. In three alternating narratives Smith provides us with a life of the painter, Sara de Vos, a life of its long-time owner, Marty de Groot and a life of the young woman who is called upon to forge it, Ellie Shipley. When the painting is stolen and replaced by a forgery Marty will forge a new identity in order to track down the people responsible for its theft and forgery. These three lives, unfolding respectively in 17th century Holland and 20th century New York and Sydney, will interact on each other with the painting acting as a kind of truth serum.

This is very much a mystery story. The first mystery is the enigmatic painting itself. It’s a depiction of skaters on a frozen river. But there’s a mysterious girl who has left footprints in the snow. “Somehow, she’s walked into this scene from outside the painting” and hovers there like a ghost. What was the inspiration behind the painting? The painting will be the summons to both Marty and Ellie to venture beyond the surfaces of their respective lives. Smith is brilliant at using the layered nature of painting itself to suggest the hidden complexity of any surface. “She has no interest in the composition from ten or twenty feet—that will come later. What she wants is topography, the impasto, the furrows where sable hairs were dragged into tiny painted crests to catch the light. Or the stray line of charcoal or chalk, glimpsed beneath a glaze that’s three hundred years old. She’s been known to take a safety pin and test the porosity of the paint and then bring the point to her tongue. Since old-world grounds contain gesso, glue, and something edible—honey, milk, cheese—the Golden Age has a distinctively sweet or curdled taste. She is always careful to avoid the leads and the cobalts.”

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos very much embraces the traditional values of novel writing. There’s nothing innovative about it nor does it provide startling insights into the human condition. But it’s brilliant storytelling, a real page turner, a quality it achieves largely because of its consistently elegant and eloquent prose and a seamless continuity between the three narratives. All three characters are compelling as individuals struggling to achieve identity.

I especially enjoyed the accounts of Ellie’s restoration work on paintings and the fabulously detailed account of her challenge to forge a 17th century old master painting. Smith describes the art of the forger as “plucking a second self from the folds of history” and this is what will happen to both Ellie and Marty, they will both pluck a second self from the folds of history.

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see the painting titled , "At the End of a Wood" in my mind from the perfectly detailed and beautiful description in the beginning of the book . For a minute I forget what I just read about Sara de Vos's character being a blend of the biographical details of several Dutch women painters in the 17th century and I'm ready to go find the image online . I'm immediately disappointed when I realize the only image I'll have of this painting is what's in my mind's eye . That disappointment dissipates as the story unfolds because the painting plays such a prominent role I can always see it based on the description.

There's a mystery of sorts , a theft of a Sara de Vos painting from a New York apartment of a privileged couple in 1958, that according to the rules of The Guild of St. Luke in Holland should not have been painted by a woman . Women were only supposed to paint still lifes. A forgery by a young woman , Ellie , trying to make it in the art world and centuries later, the men are still dominating it. The story spans the globe - Amsterdam , New York and Sydney and cuts across time the 1600's , the 1950's and finally 2000 with three narratives moving around these times and places . I almost always enjoy the novels I've read blending the past and present and for some reason I almost always enjoy the story from the past more . That held true for me in this novel as well. Whenever I read the part from 1950's or 2000, I couldn't wait to get back to Sara's story. I just had more of an emotional connection to Sara and I really wanted to know what happened to her . Having said that the meshing of Ellie's story with Sara's in the end was perfect !

I don't know much about the art world but came away from this feeling as if I learned something about it as well as enjoying the skillful story telling of Dominic Smith, an author I have not read until now .


Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley.

[Candi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a beautifully written and expertly crafted novel that will leave you not only dreaming of the landscape of a mysterious painting, but also of the times and places that connect together throughout. The austere backdrop of seventeenth century Amsterdam provides the setting for one thread to this story. New York City and Manhattan during the late 1950s is wonderfully atmospheric, jumping between art galleries, universities, jazz clubs and the homes and offices of the upper crust. The final thread takes us to the cosmopolitan landscape of Sydney, Australia during the year 2000.

Sara de Vos is a fictional character but one who is shaped from a blend of known women painters from the Dutch Golden Age. The first woman to be admitted as a master to the Guild of St. Luke in Holland, Sara existed during a time when such famous artists as Rembrandt and Vermeer flourished. However, unlike her male counterparts, Sara was limited to painting still life scenes as dictated by the guild. When misfortune arrives at her doorstep, it seems that she can no longer put paint to canvas and continue her work under these stifling conditions. And then: "One blue afternoon, she sees a young girl trudging through a snowy thicket above a frozen branch of the Amstel. Something about the light, about the girl emerging alone from the wood, rouses her to the canvas. Painting a still life suddenly seems unimaginable." Thus emerges her remarkable work of art entitled ‘At the Edge of a Wood'.

The reader is then propelled to the year 1957 and the borough of Manhattan. ‘At the Edge of a Wood’ has been in Marty de Groot’s family for generations. One evening, Marty and his wife Rachel host a charity dinner in their home. Before crashing for the night, Marty notices the picture frame is slightly askew. What he doesn’t instantly realize is that his original painting has been swapped out for a forgery. When he eventually makes the discovery, Marty will take it upon himself to not only hire a private investigator to sniff things out, but will also play detective himself. Will he later regret some of his actions in his quest to uncover the truth?

Eleanor Shipley holds a lucrative position at Sydney University. It is the year 2000, and she has been invited to curate a museum exhibit of female Dutch painters. Eleanor, known as Ellie during her poor graduate student years, is far from being uninformed about this era of painters. In fact, she was writing her dissertation on just this topic back in the late 1950s. She once tried to make a name for herself in the world of art restoration and conservation, but her attempts were thwarted by her male counterparts who seemed to obtain the much sought after positions despite their lesser talent – not unlike the frustrations of gender inequality that Sara de Vos had to endure centuries earlier. When Eleanor hears that there are two copies of the same painting on their way to Sydney to be included in the museum exhibit, she will understand that she cannot escape her past. Old memories come back to haunt her, as will some deep-seated regrets. "For two days she’s had the sensation of seeing her own life as a painting under an X-ray – the hairline fractures and warped layers that distort the topmost image. She sees her private history, the personal epochs and eras in foreign cities, with a keen, clinical detachment. They have all led to the cracks on the surface and it’s time to take responsibility for those flaws".

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a slow-burning but intriguing mystery. It took a bit of time for me to warm up to the characters of Marty and Ellie, but I was immediately drawn to Sara and her portion of the story. I was captivated by the descriptions of her painting and the aura of melancholy surrounding her early life. Her sections were my favorite part of this novel. Once the narrative moved forward in the 1950 and 2000 threads, I became engrossed with the novel as a whole. The way Dominic Smith weaves the story together was quite masterful and not at all difficult to follow. I didn’t know the techniques of art forgery could be so interesting, but even that stimulated my hungry little mind. And the ending – well, that was perfect.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent novel took me somewhat by surprise. I was expecting to be interested in this tale of the art world, theft and possible forgery, Netherlands and the art of the 17th century, but instead I was captivated.

This is such a fascinating story, taking place in 3 distinct time eras: 17th century Netherlands, 1950s New York City and Sydney, Australia of 2000. What might potentially become dangerously confused in less sure hands, is here intriguing and pulls the reader on through the pages and years. The author is assured in taking us through these times and peoples' lives; learning their secrets, their inspirations, their pain and hope and love and loss. And it centers ultimately on painting and the painting of Sara de Vos, the first woman admitted to the Guild of St. Luke's in Holland. We see her difficult life, as well as the difficult early life of grad student Ellie Shipley, freelancing as an art restorer to make money while working on her dissertation in New York City, thousands of miles from her place of birth in Australia.

Along the way, Smith treats the reader to a minor course in the creation and restoration of classic art as well as some gorgeous descriptions of art theory through Shipley's later lectures on Dutch artists such as Vermeer. But there is the matter of the forgery! Why was it made? Who for? Where is it? And what repercussions will this copy made in the early 1950s have in present day Australia?

In an exquisite moment, one of the primary characters, Ellie, is giving a lecture on qualities of light in art and uses Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance to explain what she sees, what the artist has used and created. I think this book will affect the way I look at art in the future, how I think when I'm in a museum or a gallery. I also think I will read this book again and have added all of Smith's other books to my tbr.

Highly recommended

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

[Felice Laverne · Rating 3 out of 5]

“How do you know you didn’t ruin my life forty years ago?”
“From what I can see, you never looked back.”
“I looked back, believe me,” she says.
“That makes two of us.”

Firstly, let me say to those who have read this novel, I have no idea why the Goodreads summary made me think I was going to be getting this:




For those of you who haven’t read it and are considering it, it’s not that. :-)

**CAUTION, this review contains (mild) spoilers**
In 1631, Sara de Vos is a painter ahead of her time who is plagued with debts and personal losses. Centuries after her death, her last known attributed work hangs on the bedroom wall of a wealthy lawyer, Marty de Groot, in 1950s Manhattan, until one day, it doesn’t. Marty discovers that the painting, which has been in his family for generations, has been stolen and replaced with a brilliantly executed fake. So brilliant, in fact, that it took him months to even notice the switch. It is Ellie Shipley, a graduate student from Australia with a talented eye for art and a desire to push her artistic capabilities, who is hired to forge the painting, forever joining their lives in a complex weave of events and emotions. 40 years later, Ellie is a celebrated art historian and curator who is putting on an exhibition on the topic that has compelled her and her work for her entire adult life: the Dutch Golden Age. The last known painting of Sara de Vos, At the Edge of a Wood, still haunts them both, for the forgery that Ellie painted decades before will now resurface at the same exhibit that she’s curating, threatening to end her career and tarnish her name forever.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a novel that straddles the line between contemporary and historical fiction. Let me take this opportunity to say that I was truly on board with this one at the start, but then it lost me a little about midway, maybe a little before, and then picked me up again in the last quarter or so. This novel was a good combination of fiction and research. Not brilliant, not mind-blowing, but good. Strap yourself in and get ready to be fully immersed in a painter’s world, from a how-to on mixing rabbit hides for paint to entire narrative passages on how to deconstruct a 400-year-old canvas. I’m on the fence on how I feel about how the research was displayed, leaning towards positive but not all the way there. On the one hand, it allowed me to trust the narration, made the world that Smith painted (no pun intended) far more believable, and I learned a few things from this read, which is always a plus.

BUT on the other hand, I definitely felt that I didn’t need all of it. It wasn’t quite info dump, but it was a bit much at times. For example, reading pages of 17th century minutiae such as making “apothecary blends of Ceylon loose leaf.” Honestly, I don’t even know what that passage was about. Possibly 17th century teas? Maybe? These were nice touches in and of themselves, but too many of them began to weigh me down a little. That can be a problem with fiction based heavily on research—or research-based non-fiction that tries to read like fiction—the author doesn’t know when to lay off of the research and dive into the plot; they want to include every. little. piece. of information that they found in an effort to set the setting (which was my main gripe with The Witches as well, by the way—at times the 17th century chapters here read similarly to those).

What I can say is that I never felt that any of the story lines suffered, though there were at least three in play at once, occurring in different time periods and on various continents. The Last Painting was almost Brontë-esque, which I can see a lot of people really enjoying. The settings were meticulously set; the story line seemed to meander on leisurely, as if on a stroll through Central Park, reminiscent of those good ole’ days—pre television—of classical writing, which left me, in a way, nostalgic.

There were times when the writing was tender, but it always stopped just shy of being emotive, often somewhere between clinical and touching. I felt I was an onlooker, a 3rd party staring in through a window on tip-toe, seeing and feeling it all second-hand, perhaps even slightly removed from that. I wasn’t made to sympathize with these characters, though I loved the fundamentals of Ellie’s narrative. She didn’t grab me, but most of the time, I didn’t mind watching her. I couldn’t tell if Smith was writing in this fashion deliberately or if he was just inexperienced with handling emotions as a writer. (I suppose a deeper foray into his works would answer this question for me definitively.) I realize that this novel was not meant to be the next great love saga—Marty and Ellie are not Rhett and Scarlett by any means—but their love affair, or rather their reactions to it, came off as unrealistic, not quite believable and definitely not emotive, possibly because that side of them was underdeveloped. Intellectual, I think is the word that I’m looking for. Their story line and the handling of it was intellectual, even when it wasn’t meant to be, and that didn’t grab me.

However, I must say that I am content with how this one ended. At various points in the novel, I hovered between giving de Vos 3.5 and 4 stars (which means it looks like I’m strangely on target with how the Goodreads masses feel about this one as well—shocking in itself)! Ultimately, I’m going with 3.5 because many of the novels I’ve given 4 or 5 stars truly moved me—or educated me in a way that will always stay with me—and this one was just shy of that. 3.5 stars ***

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[Suzanne Leopold (Suzy Approved Book Reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Review:

I liked this book, which was spread over three time periods.

The artist Sara de Vos narrates the time period of Amsterdam in 1635. This is a fictional character based upon the painter Sarah van Baalbergen. She and her husband are struggling artists trying to make ends meet. Marty De Groot narrates New York in the 1950’s. He is the private owner of the Sara de Vos painting. He has inherited his fortune from his wealthy Dutch family. Ellie Shipley narrates Australia in 2000. She was involved with the forgery of the De Groot painting while a graduate student in New York in her twenties.

I loved reading the three time periods and especially when they all convergence into one current story.

I did get a bit weepy at the end of the book- which means the author did a great job of making me feel the characters remorse over lost relationships and regret.

1 copy to give away on my blog until 4/22 - paperback released 4/4 https://www.facebook.com/suzyapproved...

[Dem · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Painting of Sara De Vos by Dominic Smith is a book that I had been reluctant to read and this was largely due to my dislike of another Novel on Art which I struggled through. However The Last Painting of Sara de Vos was such an engaging and interesting read and I am so glad I picked this one up and had the chance to experience Dominic Smith's wonderful writing.

I loved the plot and the wonderful sense of time and place. The story switches between three timelines and locations from New York in the 1950s to 17th Century Holland and back to 2000 Australia, which could have been confusing but worked perfectly and I had no issues following this on Audible.

I am not very familiar with the Art World but I loved learning about the paintings and the wonderful vivid images that the author painted in my mind especially of " At The Edge Of A Wood" This is a painting that was so clear in my mind while reading this story as it was beautifully described by the Author.

I think one of the most compelling parts of this stroy for me was the descriptions of the Art Work and the Forgeries and I came away with a little insight into a world I am not familiar with. I loved the wonderfully developed characters and had trouble parting with them on finishing the novel.

I listened to this on Audible and once again the Narration by Edorardo Ballerini makes this book come alive. What a wonderful narrator.

I recommend this book for readers of Historical Fiction or readers who enjoy Art.

[Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

The painting ‘At the Edge of a Wood’ by Sara De Vos is quietly looking over the sleeping couple Marty and Rachel de Groot. It was passed down to him by his father, and all the fathers before for some 600 years. Marty, only in his forties, lives in New York City with all the wealth and security one of his stature can indulge in; the year is 1958. The story easily goes back and forth from ’58 to 1637 as we read about the tragic life of painter Sara De Vos and how her impressive painting has affected Marty’s life. Like strokes of a paintbrush, the characters take form and are brought to life with their unique personalties and their innermost thoughts. Lovers of art and other readers who look for an accomplished and creative style of writing will applaud ‘The Last Painting of Sara De Vos’. Highly recommended!

[Phrynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like your historical fiction well written and well researched then this is the book for you. I really enjoyed what I learned about Dutch painters, especially the women, and about the Guilds which apparently controlled everything the artists did.
The writing style was slow and quiet, restrained and informative. The author managed to move between three different times and points of view without ever losing my interest, although I was always waiting a little to get back to Sara as the character who really interested me the most.
This is not a book to be hurried but quietly enjoyed. The mystery is convoluted but not full of suspense or danger. The characters live their lives like normal people of their times, albeit a little more splendidly in the case of Marty. And the ending is perfect.
A pleasure to read!

[PorshaJo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of one painting and three people whose lives intersect because of this painting. First, the artist, Sara de Vos. A female dutch painter who is the first woman to be allowed into the Guild of St. Luke in Amsterdam, which did not admit many female painters. She paints, At the Edge of a Wood, a winter scene with a girl looking out at skaters over a frozen river. Next, Marty de Groot, a wealthy gentleman living in New York, and the owner of Sara's painting until the painting is stolen from him. Finally, Ellie Shipley, the forger of the painting, who at one point, comes into possession of both the real painting and her forgery.

The book goes back and forth between these three characters telling their story and the story of the painting. It moves from the Netherlands, New York, and Sydney and from the 1600's to the 1950's, eventually to 2000. It took me a bit to get into this story but once I got the gist of it moving between these characters and different times, I began to enjoy it. Once the stories of Mary and Ellie came together I felt it picked up even more. I enjoyed hearing about these two and how they interacted with one another.

I listened to this one via audio and the narrator, Edoardo Ballerini, did a great job. I loved the accents that he used during the narration. There were a few times early on in the book where I felt the story was starting to drag, but I wanted to hear more of the narration and kept pushing. There were a few things in the book that I also did not feel were wrapped up. Overall, I'm glad I got to this one and glad I listened via audio.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

1600s, Holland, Sara is the first woman admitted to the artist's guild. Her husband was a painter of landscapes, but at that time woman were expected to paint only still life's. After a terrible tragedy changes the fabric of their family, Sara paints a landscape. This painting will affect the fortunes of others down the centuries.

Late 1950's Ellie Shipley is a young woman working on her thesis of Dutch woman painters, she is also working as a cleaner and restorer. She is asked to do something that will come back to haunt her in the near future and culminate in a near disaster decades later.

Martin de Groot, inherited wealth also the owner of several Dutch paintings done by woman and passed down in his family from generation to generation. A discovery he makes will have a profound effect on himself and Ellie.

Like a finished painting all these layers will come together in a final, touching and fascinating uncovering.

Wonderful story, fantastic prose, descriptive, impassioned, even the alternating storylines are used to draw the reader in, heading for a amazing dénouement. Learned so much about art, forgeries, the art world on general and the life of women painters in early times. The character of Sara is actually a composite of all early women Dutch painters, as the author so nicely explains. Shows how one decision can effect our lives in unexpected ways. For me this book was absolutely brilliant.

ARC from Netgalley.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 - rounded up.

This is a wonderfully woven tale of the art world and its intrigues that blends two stories, set in the 1600s, the 1950s and the year 2000. The intrigue focuses around a painting by a Dutch woman, Sara de Vos, the first woman admitted to the Guild of St. Luke, who has broken the imposed boundaries of her time by painting a landscape instead of a still-life. This painting, owned by a very wealthy collector in 1958, is stolen, and a young artist, named Ellie, is commissioned to paint a copy. The stories of these two very different, and yet somehow similar, women unfold with a touch of mystery that keeps you wanting to know more and more about their lives.

As is often the case with dual time period novels, I found myself wrapped up by the earlier era and resenting the intrusion of the later one at times. I wanted to know about Ellie, of course, but I was entranced by Sara (and not just because of that lovely name). I would have been just as happy if Mr. Smith had just told me Sara’s story in greater detail and left Ellie on the editing floor. However, since he did not, I must admit to loving the way he tied the two women together in the end.

I did like that Ellie was driven to create the forgery by something beyond a mercenary desire for money. I feel free to say that, since the forgery takes place in the early goings and I have not given away anything of the plot in referencing it. Does it matter if you did a wrong thing for a less sinister reason than might be suspected? Maybe not, but I suppose I am pleased to find a little higher moral character lurking in my criminals.

The writing here is beautifully done. Smith describes the painting in question in such vivid detail that it seems by the end of the book that you have seen it hanging in a museum you have visited, mixing with the Rembrandts and Vermeers. His characters have heart and substance. Sara, particularly, seems very real. She is the artist who must paint, the woman who never gets the recognition she deserves, and the soul that never stops trying to overcome sorrow. On the modern side, you could believe you might see Marty on a New York street and recognize his swagger as a sign of his easy privilege and wealth. And Ellie? Well, she is the girl in every woman who wants to achieve great things but lives with the knowledge of her own failures.

A very enjoyable read that never goes off course, I recommend this one to those who like historical fiction, mystery, or just a generally well-told story. There is a little something for everyone.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, really good - an engaging and very well written story told from three points of view - the artist Sara DeVos (from the 1600's Netherlands), DeVos painting owner Marty (from late 1950's New York into the 2000's) and Australian art historian Ellie (also from late 1950's to 2000's).

I loved how the all the threads came together in the end and all the bits and pieces in the narratives about the world of painting and forgeries. At first, I didn't care for the "Marty thread," but I ended up liking them all equally. I found this fascinating and moving - this was more than a story about art and forgeries; it was a story about morality, guilt, grief and redemption.

Just lovely; highly recommend.

[Rae Meadows · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a jewel box of a novel. Beautiful, elegant, haunting, and not a word out of place. It is restrained without being distant, moving without any overwrought pyrotechnics. I found it to be a quietly compelling page-turner about art, regret, loss, and finding meaning within the constraints of one's circumstances. Three separate narratives--1950s New York, 1630s Amsterdam, and 2000 Sydney--are interwoven seamlessly, building on each other in profound ways, all anchored by a painting. (On a side note, I was impressed with how well Dominic Smith wrote women characters.)

I loved this book, and I kept being surprised by it, not to mention the prose, which I found lovely.

"They will eat oysters and truffles and make love once or twice, floating by the peat fields of old Europe, sunken down into its ancient rivers. She will read novels in bed and fall asleep with the light on. The predictability of it is both heartening and its own kind of ruin."

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is excellent and highly recommended.

[Margitte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a perfect historical fiction read. A combination of history, masterful penmanship, an excellent plot, a successful combination of the three different characters's stories into one painting, and a storyline that keeps the reader spellbound.

During the Fifties, Ellie Shipley, a young rebellious, angry, reckless and lonely young art student from Brooklyn decides to lash back at her own life by forging an ancient old painting of the Dutch Golden Age. As she proceeded with the painting, and researched the Golden Age for her doctoral thesis, she lost herself in the story of Sara De Vos, the artist behind the At the Edge of a Wood (1636).

Sara De Vos's story is loosely based on the life of Sarah van Baalbergen, the first woman to be admitted to the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1631, as well as other female artists of the Dutch Golden Age. What made the At the Edge of a Wood unusual, was that it was a landscape painted and signed by a female artist.

As with everything else prior to the Women's Liberation Movement, men controlled everything. Women were not allowed to paint landscapes. They were restricted to florals, still lives and other subjects that could be found indoors, while men roamed the outside world in harsh conditions. The Guild also demanded control over the sales and commissions of all artists, including stonemasons and house painters! Nobody was allowed to sell any art work without their consent and control. Nobody dared sign their own work without the mafioso's approval either.

1957. Marty De Groot, a wealthy lawyer from Upper East Side, owned At the Edge of a Wood. The painting was proudly exhibited in the homes of the De Groot family for three hundred years. But then it got stolen from Marty's apartment.

More than forty years later, in the year 2000, the painting, as well as the forgery, arrived at an art exhibition in Sydney Australia.

As with A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #7) by Louise Penny, Dominic Smith explores the underbelly of the art world in The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. The intrigue, foul play, pathos and sentiment of this mesmerizing world is dissected to the bone, without turning it into a murder mystery drama. A drama it is, and a mystery for sure, but a different light is painted onto the characters and events. It becomes a sad, but beautiful story in the end.

This has nothing to do with the book, and not a spoiler at all. I just want to add it for interest's sake:

Another thrill for me was the historical information provided in the book. Rachel Ruysch, the greatest of the female Dutch Golden Age Realist painters, is one of my all-time favorite artists, and the era itself a period of total wonder to me. The detailed paintings, and in particular the floral-scapes, always, and still, keep me mesmerized for hours. And of course, these female artists were also allowed to get involved in botany, just about the only science they were accepted into. The results are a wealth of drawings and paintings of flowers which enriched the history of botany on a magnificent scale. Another book on the involvement of women in botany is The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, which highlights the Golden Age of Botanical Exploration.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a masterpiece.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written and cleverly constructed, I’m happy to have genuinely enjoyed my time with this book. It’s admittedly a bit slow to start, but that investment more than pays off in the form of a fascinating story, complex characters, and a beautifully executed ending.

As evidenced by the title, the art of painting is the backdrop against which this story is told. I’ve never taken an interest, nor am I learned on the subject to any degree, but still I found the artistic descriptions to be exquisite. I think it’s because of the way the author relates the emotional state of the artist to the piece they are creating, and to the feelings that piece continues to evoke in viewers hundreds of years later. I did not expect to enjoy that aspect of the book as much as I did, and what a pleasant surprise.

To my mind, what this story comes down to more than anything else, is the meticulous study of its characters. Two artists, Sara and Ellie, whose lives are separated by centuries, yet are irrevocably linked by means of a painting. Their stories unfold across time, and though we’re only privy to a small portion of their lives, the author still manages to delve into the essence of who they are, what drives them, and the art that so strongly influences them. These women from vastly different cultures and eras seem to share a sense of regret, a grief for the loss of what might have been.

Lastly, I must say that I was mesmerized by the final chapter of this book. I believe the ending of this story will be subject to a personal interpretation for each reader. As for me, I felt that this conclusion was reflective of a new beginning and a new hope – it was both poignant and very satisfying. Thank you, Dominic Smith! Without a doubt, I’ll be on the lookout for other work by this author.

[Violet wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a lot of weighty novels this year - Beckett, Proust and Musil among them - and felt the need of something compellingly lighter. This performed the task well. There are three narrative strands: the painter of the painting in 17th century Holland, the owner of the painting in 1960s and 2000 New York and the forger of the painting again in New York. It could have gone deeper into the questing for authenticity in life and the problems of defining what is authentic but it was written with lots of verve and nicely structured.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his novel The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, Dominic Smith deftly describes what art is for me--whether it be a painting, a novel, a dance, a piece of music, etc.--it is "the possibility . . . of rendering the smoke of human emotion itself."

The conception of the novel began with Smith wanting to highlight the missing painters of the Dutch Golden Age, the women. His fictional character, Sara de Vos is modeled on what he discovered about Judith Leyster (a real life woman painter of the period) and rounded out with research of the time period and his own inventiveness.

Smith interweaves three alternating timelines and locations--1630's Netherlands, 1950's Manhattan, and the year 2000 Sydney. I am engaged and the slow revelations as I smoothly glide in time and place maintain a tension to compel me to keep reading. This format allows Smith to show the history of one painting and the wider story of it's effect on his main characters.

The novel centers around a 17th century Dutch painting called "At the Edge of a Wood" painted by Sara de Vos, the first woman to be admitted to the Guild of St. Luke. It portrays a girl overlooking a frozen river. She's barefoot, and she seems cut off from the reveling skaters down on the frozen river. Sara paints it at a moment of loss in her life; it is a memorial to her 7 year old daughter who dies of the plague. Marty de Groot, a wealthy Manhattan lawyer living in an unhappy, childless marriage, takes a strange kind of comfort in this rather haunting landscape in the 1950's. Ellie Shipley, a student when she first encounters this painting sees the genius and skill of the work; it challenges what she expects to find in a painting by a woman from this time period. And in it, she sees potential for her own career.

The two women protagonists, Sara and Ellie, though separated by centuries both face discrimination in the male dominated art world. In 1630's Holland, men tightly control the Guild of St. Luke, constraining what women are allowed to paint. In the 1950's Ellie leaves Australia and the idea of being an art conservator and heads to the U.S., to begin her career in art history. If not for the sex discrimination she experiences, it is conceivable that Ellie might never have been in the position to forge Sara's painting.

"Something changed in her after that. The anger hardened, came back as a refrain. For years, that moment flickered back whenever she was cleaning or inpainting a canvas--a sense that she had no business engaging in this work. . . . I should have been easy to dismiss--a miserable old man unable to offer a gifted teenage girl a simple compliment. . . She wonders now if the forgery wasn't a form of retribution, a kind of calculated violence--against Jack and Michael Franke, against the old boy network at the Courtauld Institute, against her own indifferent father. But mostly against the girl standing out on the glassed-in veranda who thought her talents were prodigious and therefore enough."

Many of my women friends and I have experienced this type of discrimination. Some of us work harder and move forward. Some stew in bitterness and stagnate. Some plot revenge and damage our psyches. Some give up and stop trying to succeed. And some call the discriminators out and seek fair treatment. This latter strategy is much easier to work with in current times, though it still isn't always effective.

The idea of recognition and authenticity is one of the themes of this book, both of the painting itself and of the characters in this story. Who are we, what do we value, and do we live this way? Smith also looks at barrenness, the inability to have children and the inability to express creatively. How does this affect us?

Smith's characters are real and ring true for their eras and circumstances. His writing is good. A few samples:

“She has no interest in the composition from ten or twenty feet—that will come later. What she wants is topography, the impasto, the furrows where sable hairs were dragged into tiny painted crests to catch the light. Or the stray line of charcoal or chalk, glimpsed beneath a glaze that’s three hundred years old. She’s been known to take a safety pin and test the porosity of the paint and then bring the point to her tongue. Since old-world grounds contain gesso, glue, and something edible—honey, milk, cheese—the Golden Age has a distinctively sweet or curdled taste. She is always careful to avoid the leads and the cobalts."

"Her daughter’s death had loosed something in Sara, a savage kind of grief that burned onto the canvas.”

“The sonic world of the foyer and vestibule comes at him distorted and from a distance, as if someone’s moving furniture underwater.”

I enjoyed my time in the past and with these characters as I uncovered their stories. I learned more about art in the Dutch Golden Era and I learned a bit about forging paintings and how the art world sometimes deals with them. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is a satisfying read told by a skilled storyteller.

[DeB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Single word adjectives kept coming to mind as I read, "languid", "dolorous", "frilly", "exacting", "void"....no doubt inspired by the flood of description written on every page of "The Last Painting of Sara De Vos".

The novel is a feat of detail, following not only the item, the painting, but the action and physical art itself with its movement on carefully prepared surfaces, variable brushstrokes and the medium applied. I was entranced by the fictional Sara De Vos in 16th Century Netherlands as I watched her create, struggle with life's hardships and be compelled to record them again with her brushes. In New York a hibernating Ellie Shipstead in 1957 offered a look at the world of restoration and then forgery, a mixture of chemistry and artistry.

For me, the brushstrokes drew this novel most of the way, and the characters were minor players overshadowed by Dominic Smith's painstaking description. I felt saturated with the winter light, the lead tin yellow of The Edge of the Wood, the reminder of Brueghelian narratives, glimpses of Vermeer and Rembrandt. The process of painting, displaying, forging, selling, owning carried the drama; the selves behind the acts felt muted to me somehow.

The twists at the end were a gentle surprise, a satisfying frame around the meticulously constructed novel. A sensuous feast of words for the mind.

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dominic Smith masterfully tells the story of lives intertwined over the centuries by a painting. At the Edge of the Wood by Sara de Vos a 17th Century Dutch painter is one of the few landscape paintings created by a woman in that era. While women were admitted to the master painters' Guild of St. Luke's, they were relegated to still life painting, leaving the landscapes to men. The painting, done in the 1630's, is born of grief after the death of Sara's daughter.

The painting has been owned by and handed down in one family. We meet the current owner, wealthy Marty De Groot, in 1957 when he is giving a party in his Upper East Side New York townhouse to raise funds for some good cause. He notices some time after that At the Edge of the Wood is a fake - a fake that fooled him for a time until he sees a small detail that tells him his original has been stolen and replaced.

Enter Ellie Shipley, a grad student at Columbia originally from Australia, who was hired to create the forgery as part of a scam to get money from De Groot, something that haunts her for the rest of her life. She and De Groot meet in 1958, when De Groot assumes a fake identify to see if he can trap Ellie in her deceit. So much fakery going on!

Fast forward to Sidney, Australia in the year 2000 where Ellie is a professor specializing in 17th Century Dutch art. An exhibition is being launched which will include At The Edge of the Wood. But which painting will arrive in Sidney? Will Ellie's forgery be exposed? What happened to Marty De Groot? Does he still own the fake or did he get the original back?

Seeing what I've written so far, I feel I'm doing a disservice to the power of this book! So many layers of goodness to connect with as Smith expertly traverses time between the 1630's to tell Sara's story, the 1950's to tell the mystery of the art theft/forgery and the year 2000 to answer these questions and many more. Edoardo Ballerini was excellent at bringing the threads of this sweeping story to life. The last hour touched me so, I listened with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. The Last Painting of Sara De Vos was a delight! Highly recommended.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fine novel plunges us into the world of art restoration and its close cousin, art forgery. Ellie Shipley is a graduate student studying Dutch women artists of the 17th century and eking out a living restoring old works of art. When she is asked to paint a copy of a 17th century painting "At the End of a Wood" from a photograph, she is tempted into doing it to see if she can. The ramifications of her actions will resonate through her life and finally catch up with her some 40 years later.

In telling this story the novel moves through the Holland of the 1660s to the brownstones of 1950s New York to Sydney in the year 2000. A member of the Dutch Guild, Sara de Vos is only licensed to paint still lives. "At the End of a Wood" is the only known landscape painted by her and the reasons for this are explored in the context of her life and times. In the 1950s the painting has been in the family of wealthy Marty de Groot for three hundred years and he keeps it hanging in his bedroom where he can enjoy it every day. Ellie moves on from New York to become an art curator and in organising an exhibition of Dutch women painters has to deal with her past when both the real and the fake copy of the painting turn up together.

The description of each place and time felt very realistic. The details of life as a painter in Holland in the 17th century, the poverty and the diseases that destroyed families were well depicted. I also enjoyed the descriptions of Ellie's work as a restorer of old paintings and the details of the materials used to give the repairs an aged look. And then there is finally Ellie's life in Sydney on Scotland Island and her work at the Art Gallery, looking back at a successful life but with a sense of loneliness. She almost welcomes the ripples of her actions some four decades earlier that have finally reached her at the other side of the world and that she must now face.

I very much enjoyed this very original novel and recommend it to those who enjoy historical fiction.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Depiction and a Lie

Before that first line of pale chalk, before the underdrawing fleshes out into shapes and proportions, there is a stab of grief for all the things she didn't get to paint. The finches wheeling in the rafters of the barn, Cornelis reading in the arbor, Tomas bent over in his roses in the flower garden, apple blossoms, walnuts beside oysters, Kathrijn in the full bloom of her short life, Barent sleeping in a field of lilacs, the Gypsies in the market, late-night revelers in the taverns…. Every work is a depiction and a lie. We rearrange the living, exaggerate the light, intimate dusk when it's really noonday sun.

I was put off from reading this book for a long time, because of its garish and inappropriate cover; more of that in a moment. But it is really a very good novel indeed. There are three settings: Holland in the mid-1600s, New York in the 1950s, and Sydney in 2000; for now, let's concentrate on the last two. Ellie Shipley, an Australian doctoral student in art history, restores paintings on the side. One day, she is commissioned to copy a landscape from the Dutch Golden Age—At the Edge of a Wood, the only known painting by Sara de Vos—showing a girl watching children skating on a frozen river. She suspects that this is illicit, but says nothing until she hears that the original has been stolen and her fake put in its place. When the owner, a lawyer named Marty de Groot, discovers the substitution, he starts an inquiry that eventually leads him to Ellie….

In the interleaving chapters, Ellie has returned to her native Sydney, where the museum is to mount an exhibition on her specialty, Dutch Women Painters of the Golden Age. Three supposed de Vos canvases appear: one that Marty brings over himself, and two others from a small collection in Leiden. Ellie's past is about to catch up with her—as are her memories of her relationship with Marty. By juxtaposing past with present, author Dominic Smith gives frequent hints that things did not go exactly as one might expect, but you have to keep reading for one section to elucidate the other.

The third setting, Holland in the seventeenth century, focuses on Sara de Vos herself, a fictional figure, but a plausible addition to the small cadre of female painters known to have been admitted to the guilds at the time. Not surprisingly, these chapters are in a different tone from the rest. Smith calls upon a number of documented events—a beached whale at Scheveningen and Rembrandt's painting of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (also the subject of Nina Siegal's novel The Anatomy Lesson)—to give a detailed but generic picture of the life of a Dutch painter at the time. It is not until the novel is approaching its end that Sara gains full depth as an individual—but when she does, it is very moving indeed. For there are two mysteries about that "last" painting: the question of real and fake, and the possibility that this might not be her last after all.

======



So what was it about that cover? It did not help that my first career was as an art historian, and this was one of my periods. I was concerned that a book ostensibly about a painting from the Dutch Golden Age should be sold with a painted cover that could not remotely come from that period. First, the isolation against a black background. Secondly, the female head, which looks a century earlier. But most particularly the heavy impasto of that scarf, it's brushstrokes totally out of scale with the head, and utterly more modern in approach. But Smith makes the point early on that the yellow highlights on the skaters' scarves, using an old pigment called lead-tin yellow, was the one thing that gave Ellie the most trouble. The cover painter has simply seized on this point and illustrated it without regard to context. For in this, and every technical point having to do with conservation, restoration, and forgery, Smith is meticulous in his accurate detail. [The one question I still had was whether Ellie could reasonably paint a close copy working from photographs alone, but I was prepared to accept it for the sake of the plot.]

The larger question is whether the paintings mentioned in the story are plausible for the period. Painters in the Golden Age (with Rembrandt being the major exception) were generally highly specialized, painting only portraits, or landscapes, or still-lives, or genre scenes. Although the images in the beautiful passage with which I began could mostly be found in Dutch art of the time, they would not have had the romantic quality implied by the words, and they certainly would not all have come from the same brush. But these images are in Sara's mind, or at best her private sketches; they are not subjects for public sale.

My respect for Dominic Smith increased enormously when I came across his article A Painterly Playlist on the publisher's site, in which he shows a number of paintings from the period that have inspired him. The image below is one of those that he includes; although not by a female painter its tragic power is an obvious inspiration for his novel, in ways that will become clear to those who read it.


Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraaten, Nieukoop in Winter with Child Funeral

He admits that there is no one picture that could be Sara's At the Edge of a Wood; there are skating scenes and portraits, but not combinations of the two. But, by choosing a female painter, he is permitting her to think outside the box. And furthermore, as her life gradually gains depth, we see that she is painting it for personal reasons and under very special conditions indeed. In words, if not on canvas, Smith gives us an image that haunts us down the ages:

The girl's face is mostly in profile, her dark hair loose and tangled about her shoulders. Her eyes are fixed on some distant point—but is it dread or the strange halo of winter twilight that pins her in place? She seems unable, or unwilling, to reach the frozen riverbank. Her footprints lead back through the snow, toward the wood, beyond the frame. Somehow, she's walked into this scene from outside the painting, trudged onto the canvas from our world, not hers.

[Gemma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of novel I love best of all. Beautifully written, well-constructed, well-researched and, best of all, excitingly plotted. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos tells the story of how one painting affects the lives of people through whose hands it passes through the centuries – a fascinating idea in itself. Essentially we get three characters and their stories – the author of the painting itself, Sara, and her life in 17th century Holland (beautifully depicted), an art historian who turns to forgery, Eleanor Shipley and the owner of the painting, Marty de Groot whose family have owned the painting for years. However it’s discovered the painting the de Groot family possesses is a fake. What follows is a gripping detective story which artfully dovetails between three different eras and places. Each of the characters has a compelling mystery which only the painting will reveal.

[Anmiryam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who'd have thunk my words would have ended up in a New York Times Ad for this book? They did, and I'm kvelling:



What a brilliant melding of subject and atmosphere. This book reads as if it were a 17th century Dutch Masterpiece -- beautiful, clear, complex and infused with both joy and longing. As good a novel as I've ever read that uses art and art history as a way of elucidating the human heart. Highly recommended!