The Last Painting of Sara de Vos: A Novel (Thorndike Press Large Print Basics) - Softcover

Smith, Dominic

Softcover

ISBN 10: 143283780X ISBN 13: 9781432837808

Publisher: Large Print Press, 2017

Synopsis

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 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.

About this title

About the Author

Dominic Smith is the author of four novels, including The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, a New York Times Bestseller and a New York Times Editors' Choice. His other novels are Bright and Distant Shores, The Beautiful Miscellaneous, and The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. He grew up in Sydney, Australia and now lives in Austin, Texas.

His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, Texas Monthly, the Chicago Tribune, The Paris Review, and The New York Times.

Smith's awards include the Dobie Paisano Fellowship from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize, the Gulf Coast Fiction Prize, and a New Works Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. His fiction has been shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year Prize.

Edition details

• Publisher: Large Print Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 143283780X
• ISBN 13: 9781432837808
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 493