The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, by Dominic Smith

It took a while to get into this novel, which jumps between three time periods and locations; the ‘Golden Age’ of Dutch painting, mid 17th century Netherlands; 1958 New York; and 2000 Sydney. The most compelling narrative is that of artist Sara de Vos, who faces hardship, loss and betrayal while struggling to continue to paint in the 1730s and 40s. The story of Martin and Ellie, which starts with a theft and a forgery in 1958, is less interesting, but serves as the key to the mystery of what happened to Sara. In the end everyone finds a measure of happiness, which is possibly a little too pat. This is not the great novel it has been hyped up as, but it provides an intriguing insight to a little known aspect of Dutch art via a different sort of relationship across three continents and three centuries.