Review of
Instarad Summary of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith
Four out of five stars
Although there
some historically accurate aspects to this novel, the events and individuals
are all fictitious. The two main characters are wealthy Marty de Groot, a man
that owns the only known surviving painting by seventeenth-century Dutch artist
Sara de Vos and Ellie Shipley a student pursuing a PhD in art history at
Columbia.
Marty realizes
that his de Vos painting has been replaced by a clever forgery and he is able
to determine that Shipley is the forger. Marty exacts a specific form of
revenge on Shipley, he befriends her only to coldly abandon her. However, he
does not expose her as an art forger. Decades later, Marty tries to make some
form of restitution for what he did, by giving Shipley control over the
forgery. Shipley is now a professor of art and the revelation that she once
forged a painting will destroy her career.
As is explained
in this summary, this is a story about life mistakes and attempts to recover
from them. It is also a bit of a historical retrospective when the life of the
artist Sara de Vos is examined. Abandoned by her debt-ridden husband, Sara is
forced to find a way to make a living and she turns to painting. At that time, single
women had few options for income and being an artist was generally not one of
them.
Since so much
of the plot is based on the art world, from the collectors to the potentially
lucrative world of forgery to the historical background of the artists, it is
clear from this summary that this is not a novel that will appeal to a wide
audience. This is summarized by the passage in the “themes” section of the
summary.
“The very different ways in which Marty and Ellie are
affected by their encounter in 1957 reveal how class position determines so
much about a person’s fate, especially in the art world.”
If you are interested in this specific niche of the
world, then this is a novel that you may enjoy. People will little to no
interest in the art world will be convinced by this summary to avoid the book.
This book was made available for free for review
purposes.
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