Forgeries and Fakes: The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

Ellie was a twenty-six-year-old grad student working in art conservation when she was asked to make a copy of a 17th c painting by a female Dutch painter. The copy is her masterpiece. Ellie is complicit when the original painting is stolen and replaced with Ellie's copy. 

The painting's owner Marty recognized that his heirloom had been replaced with a forgery. He hired a private detective who leads him to Ellie. Marty assumes a fake identity to get close to Ellie. Each is hiding a truth, but find themselves drawn to each other. Their deceptions bring ruin into both their lives.

Forty years pass and Ellie and Marty are reunited when he loans his painting to the exhibit she is curating. Marty is full of regret as he faces coming death. Ellie's complicity haunts her; she knows she has built a house of cards and is certain her youthful indiscretion will be revealed.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith is related in three time periods, tracing the history of a painting over four centuries. The struggles and losses of Sara de Vos, a painter during the Dutch Golden Age, is told interspersed between the storyline of Marty and Ellie in the late 1950s when Ellie forges Sara's painting, and in the 2000s when Ellie and Marty are reunited.

I enjoyed reading this book. The writing is beautiful with lovely turns of phrases and memorable epigrams. Rooms 'bloat with darkness', a lie 'comes effortlessly, a deadbolt sliding into a groove." Ellie 'tries to uncover a breadcrumb trail of moral failure" in her history. 

There is psychological depth to Marty and Ellie as they struggle with moral decisions and their consequences. Regret, Marty says to Ellie, doesn't eat you alive; it keeps you alive. Marty's reflections on old age are darkly humorous. I do wish there had been a fourth time period in the novel; the missing 40 years would have been profoundly interesting, a time when Marty and Ellie hit rock bottom and had to rebuild their lives.

Sara de Vos was inspired by a real Dutch female painter. Sara's paintings are vividly described. Descriptions of the craft of painting in the 17th c and when Ellie makes her copy reveal the fatal flaw in Ellie's forgery. 

To read more about Dutch female painters of the 17th c. check out

Three Women Painters of the Dutch Golden Age

I realized I had read this author's book The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre some years ago and had enjoyed it.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

Dominic Smith

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

$26.00 hard cover

ISBN: 9780374106683

Publication Date: April 5, 2016

A Visit To the Flint Institute of Arts

My friend suggested we take a trip to the Flint Institute of Arts to see an exhibit of French photography. I had not been to the museum in over ten years, and it has been through a major remodeling since then.

Guernica by Sophie Matisse (granddaughter of Henri Matisse) was her response to witnessing the events of 9-11. She painted Picasso's Guernica, his response to the bombing of a village during the Spanish Civil War, using her grandfather's color pallet.

We arrived too early! But the Director of Development, Kathryn Sharbaugh, came out and took us on a personal tour of several galleries, educating us on specific pieces along the way.

  Dale Chihuly work was commissioned for the new lobby 

My husband's father grew up in Flint, MI. This Edmund Lewandowski mural was inspired by a map of Flint. We spent a long time looking at it. Read about how it was covered up and later restored here.

Horror Vacui by Judy Pfaff

Sculpture in the courtyard

African Mask

18th c Chinese celadon porcelain

19th c painting of the 1,000 Islands

Sleepy Hollow Church by Thomas Chambers, 1850

Birds attributed to Thomas Coke Ruckle

Ms. Sharbaugh spent a long time with the painting below, explaining the Victorian symbolism. It was painted by an itinerant Philadelphia artist for The Fowler family who had lost a child.

The Fowler children, 1854

My husband noted right off that the two children on the left were in mourning clothes while the girl on the right is in white, and surrounded by flowers. He deducted the girl in white was the deceased. Our guide explained another hint was her coral necklace; coral is the remains of a creature that was once alive. Also the painting is divided in it's background; the living children have ivy behind them, a symbol of growth, while the deceased girl has an idealized landscape behind her.

1840s portrait of a woman

I hope we return soon to see the galleries that were being dismantled for the annual craft fair. I picked up their book of American Art at the gift shop. Some of my favorite artists are represented!

Flint Institute of Arts
1120 East Kearsley St
Flint MI
Open 12-5 M-F, 10-5 Sat, 1-5 Sun