ABSTRACT
Dominic Smith created a vivid picture of a woman artist, her life and times, in seventeenth-century Holland, in his much-praised historical novel The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. Interviewed by Frima Fox Hofrichter, a consultant for Smith, and an expert on an actual seventeenth-century Dutch woman artist, Judith Leyster, Smith discusses his method and research. His storyline has three avenues: the seventeenth-century artist and her milieu, the art historian who specializes on that woman artist, and a twenty-first-century collector. Knitted within are their personal lives – and the question of forgery. Smith and Hofrichter discuss his inspiration for the novel in Judith Leyster and how his contacts and travel influenced the novel’s authentic flavor.
