The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, Dominic Smith
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, Dominic Smith
10 Rating(s)
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The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
A Novel

Author: Dominic Smith

Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini

Unabridged: 9 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/05/2016


Synopsis

A masterful new story charts the circuitous course of the sole surviving work of a female Dutch painter

This is what we long for: the profound pleasure of being swept into vivid new worlds, worlds peopled by characters so intriguing and real that we can't shake them, even long after the reading's done. In his earlier, award-winning novels, Dominic Smith demonstrated a gift for coaxing the past to life. Now, in The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, he deftly bridges the historical and the contemporary, tracking a collision course between a rare landscape by a female Dutch painter of the golden age, an inheritor of the work in 1950s Manhattan, and a celebrated art historian who painted a forgery of it in her youth.

In 1631, Sara de Vos is admitted as a master painter to the Guild of St. Luke's in Holland, the first woman to be so recognized. Three hundred years later, only one work attributed to de Vos is known to remain--a haunting winter scene, At the Edge of a Wood, which hangs over the bed of a wealthy descendant of the original owner. An Australian grad student, Ellie Shipley, struggling to stay afloat in New York, agrees to paint a forgery of the landscape, a decision that will haunt her. Because now, half a century later, she's curating an exhibit of female Dutch painters, and both versions threaten to arrive. As the three threads intersect, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos mesmerizes while it grapples with the demands of the artistic life, showing how the deceits of the past can forge the present.

This program includes a Reading Group Guide read by the author.

About Dominic Smith

Dominic Smith is the author of six novels, including The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, which was a New York Times bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and was named a best book of the year by Slate, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Kirkus Reviews. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and The Australian, among other publications. He grew up in Sydney, Australia, and now lives in Seattle, Washington.

About Edoardo Ballerini

Edoardo Ballerini is an American writer, director, film producer and actor.  He has won many awards for his audiobook narration; within only a few years after beginning his narrating career, he won several AudioFile Earphones Awards for his work, including Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How The World Became Modern, Jodi Picoult’s The Storyteller and Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins.   He narrated Kenzaburo Oe’s Nobel Prize Winning Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Joseph Finder’s The Moscow Club as well as works by John Edward and Daniel Stashower.   In television and film, he is best known for his role in The Sopranos, 24, I Shot Andy Warhol, Dinner Rush and Romeo Must Die. The silky-voiced Ballerini is trained in theater and continues to do much work on stage.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennifer on April 12, 2016

I know that it is only April but I might have found my favorite book of 2016! Holy cow was this brilliant! I've never heard of Dominic Smith before this book but he's a phenomenal writer and what a story this is! This novel has it all! Beautiful writing, well fleshed out characters, a wonderful stor......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on May 29, 2023

In 1631 Sara de Vos is the first woman painter to be admitted to the Guild of St Luke’s in Holland. It’s the Dutch Golden Age, the time of Vermeer, Rembrandt and Hals. It’s unusual for women to paint anything other than still life, but Sara has produced a haunting winter scene which will be known as......more

Goodreads review by Canadian Jen on September 29, 2016

Here we have it: my authentic review. It has not been forged in any way, but a 17th century painting has and it's about to come into contact with the real one 40 years later. The narrative starts with the artist herself and the inspiration or more accurately, the grief, for the painting. The story th......more

Goodreads review by Katie on October 01, 2020

4.5 stars. As was the case in The Goldfinch, an enigmatic 17th century Dutch painting is the focus of everything that happens in this novel. In three alternating narratives Smith provides us with a life of the painter, Sara de Vos, a life of its long-time owner, Marty de Groot and a life of the young......more

Goodreads review by Angela M on April 05, 2016

I see the painting titled , "At the End of a Wood" in my mind from the perfectly detailed and beautiful description in the beginning of the book . For a minute I forget what I just read about Sara de Vos's character being a blend of the biographical details of several Dutch women painters in the 17t......more


Quotes

"Smith uses a rare painting by a fictitious seventeenth-century female Dutch painter to create a story that covers three centuries, three continents, and three lives. Like a master painter building the layers that transform canvas into art, narrator Edoardo Ballerini uses language to build a story that is rich and multilayered. His narration is clear and concise, with a steady tempo and inflection." -AudioFile Magazine

"[Edoardo Ballerini's] fine performance complements the mesmerizing novel with its insights into characters, history, and art." Booklist

"Edoardo Ballerini's reading will make it hard to pause when you leave your car. So if you haven't a road trip planned, listen to it at home." NJ.com

"Ballerini does soulful better than any other audiobook narrator around, and that’s exactly what’s called for with this complex novel. " Slate


Awards

  • Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
  • Amazon.com Best Books of the Year