Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith

Sara de Vos was a 17th century Dutch painter.  She was the first female to be admitted s a master painter to the Guild of St. Luke’s in Holland.  However, she had a very difficult life.  ‘The Last Painting’ follows 17th century Sara, 20th century Martin de Groot, the owner of her last remaining painting, and Ellie Shipley an ambitious 1950’s art graduate student.

Ellie Shipley goes against her better judgement to put food on her table as a graduate student and forges the last known existing painting of Sara de Vos, ‘ Edge of a Wood’.  It is owned by the wealthy descendant of the original owner.  Fast forward to the 21st century and the forgery may be discovered.

In my opinion, sometimes multi time dimensions flow smoothly and work well in a book and sometimes they are not as successful.  For me, it didn’t work that successfully in this book.  The time shifting just felt choppy to me.  I loved the story of Sara and her life.  I also enjoyed following Ellie and her experience as a forger and then an art historian.  I didn’t enjoy following Martin as much.  I think perhaps I might have if more about him and the connection to the other two principle characters would have been more thoroughly explained towards the beginning.

I do think the ‘Last Painting of Sara de Vos’ is a worthwhile book to read, as a historical fiction lover.  I haven’t read anything about Dutch female artists and am always looking for something new.  I could tell that Dominic Smith really did his research.  I do prefer well researched books, even when they are historical fiction! Often after I read a historical fiction book, I will do a Google search to find out some of the real history however, I came up blank for this book.  The only thing that popped up was links to and about this book.

3.5/5

I received the ebook for review via Net Galley.

About Dominic Smith

Dominic grew up in Sydney, Australia and now lives in Austin, Texas. His short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly and The Chicago Tribune.

Dominic is the author of four novels, most recently of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos (forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Bright and Distant Shores (a selection for Kirkus Reviews’ “Best Books of 2011,” and shortlisted for Australia’s Vance Palmer Fiction Prize and The Age Book of the Year.)

His awards include the Dobie Paisano Fellowship from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize, and the Gulf Coast Fiction Prize.

In 2006, his debut novel “The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre” was selected for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great News Writers Program. It also received the Steven Turner Prize for First Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. Dominic’s second novel, “The Beautiful Miscellaneous,” was a Booklist Editors’ Pick and optioned for a film by Southpaw Entertainment.

Dominic serves on the fiction faculty in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and has taught recently at the University of Texas at Austin, Rice University, and Southern Methodist University.