A review by alundeberg
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith

3.0

I started out liking this book a lot and then not so much. First-- it has the settings I would like: 17th Century Netherlands, 1950's Manhattan, and present day Sydney. It's about little known 17th century Dutch women artists, and Vermeer is discussed a lot. It's about women's lack of recognition in the art world-- not just as artists, but as museum curators and restorers. It's about the nature of forgery and creation. So far everything's a win. Then a wealthy, older, white man finds out that his heirloom (one that he doesn't even like that much) has been stolen and forged and seeks payback from the young, vulnerable female college student who was manipulated by another unscrupulous man into creating forgery. Of course, what he takes from her in exchange is far greater than his painting and his pride. At that point I started skimming the rest of the book. I was frustrated by the author who put forth a rather feminist text only to fall back on the same old trope of man putting woman into place and basically getting away with it scot-free, but who also didn't want to acknowledge that this is what he did as an author. It's like he wants to be a feminist storyteller, but cannot punish the man for his wrong-doing.