Smith's historical fiction story in two timelines equally powerfully evokes the bleak Dutch winters of the 17th century and grimy, volatile 1950s Brooklyn, along with fascinating details of art and art forgery and a tense undercurrent that kept me hooked.
The painting referenced in Dominic Smith's novel title is a rare landscape by a female Dutch painter--the first woman admitted as a master painter to Holland's Guild of St. Luke's. At the Edge of a Wood is a stark, arresting winter landscape, and the painting hangs over the bed of the descendant of the first owner of the work.
Ellie Shipley is a struggling Australian grad student when she agrees to paint a forgery of the painting--and she does a fine job, if she does say so herself.
But an inheritor of the work in 1950s Manhattan wants to show it in an exhibit. Ellie, now a celebrated art historian, is potentially facing a disaster in which her forgery comes to light on the world stage.
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos twists through betrayal, love, lots and lots of art, loss, fear of discovery, and exquisitely detailed restoration and forgery processes. These richly built elements form a backdrop to two women's linked journeys, separated by 300 years. Smith equally vividly captures the harsh beauty of both grimy 1950s Brooklyn and 17th century Dutch bleak winters.
I was totally taken in by the winding paths of the women's expectations and limitations, and by their ultimate breaks from the traps in which they find themselves.
For more novels I've read and reviewed that focus on art, please check out this link.
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Dominic Smith is also the author of Return to Valetto, The Electric Hotel, The Beautiful Miscellaneous, Bright and Distant Shores, and The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre.
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