Sara is Dominic Smith's creation, as is the life he invents for her, but she is based on a real woman artist of the Dutch Golden Age, Sarah von Baalbergen, who in 1631 was the first woman artist ever to be admitted to the Harlem Guild of St Luke, which controlled all aspects of an artist's professional life. The painting that is the cause of the problem is the only known surviving work of a 17th century Dutch woman, Sara de Vos. These are the dilemmas faced by Ellie Shipley, an Australian woman who we first meet boiling up smelly rabbit pelts for glue and grinding pigments in a mildewed, cramped Brooklyn apartment. What would you do if your Ph.D dissertation in Art History was stalled, your skills and expertise in art restoration and conservation were being overlooked, and the art-dealer from whom you often gained lucrative restoration commissions asked you to copy a valuable old painting with which you immediately fell in love?Īnd what would you do if years later, when you are a respected figure in the art world, your copy-your fake, to be precise-and the original painting were both due to arrive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia for an important exhibition of which you are curator?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |