I've just finished reading a book that cleverly interweaves fiction and art history within an 18th century setting. I'm talking about Barbara Ewing's novel The Fraud.
Without spoiling the plot too much, the story revolves around a Bristol painter who goes to Italy and assumes the persona of a Florentine artist: Filipo di Vecellio, an in-joke. Returning to Bristol, he rescues his sister Grace from poverty, and sets her up as a housekeeper in his fashionable town house in Pall Mall. Here's the catch. Grace must renounce her former life and identity and pretend to be his sister Francesca. The main thread running through the novel is that Grace/Francesca is actually the better painter, a fact that her brother cannot come to terms with. So fact is coated over with layers of deception. Filipo paints portraits for illustrious clients by day; Francesca paints at night in her room.
Ewing is excellent at evoking the sink or swim world of Hogarth's London; the painter makes a cameo appearance earlier in the story. Also present are Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, the former presiding over the 'on the line' RA exhibitions; the latter offering sympathy and advice to the embroiled Grace/Francesca. Our heroine also learns about chiaroscuro from Mr. Joseph Wright of Derby; this provides Ewing with a excellent metaphor- the woman paints from a darkness within her.
The novel also falls into the art crime genre too: at an advanced stage of the narrative, we're given an object lesson in faking a Rembrandt and aging it to fool the academicians.
Ultimately, fakery on the artistic and social level is difficult to sustain. Exposure becomes the only solution for Grace; but Filipo, despite the unraveling of his life's story, decides to go on living a lie.
Most art history in novel format doesn't succeed, but I think this does. Ewing's research is thorough and she blends art fact with art fiction adroitly. Add a dash of art crime and you've got all the ingredients for a great book. Recommended.
I have a mysterious 17th century painting that is described as a Bacchanalian Scene by Nicolas Poussin, according to a 19th century sales receipt on the back. There's a reference on the back to its purchase in Paris in 1859 from the sale of Aley's collection. The only auction catalogue of 1859 is that of Allesandro Castellani, and there was a sale of a Poussin and it was a Bacchanal. No one seems to think the painting is a Poussin though. However, there are 13 missing Bacchanals by Poussin. Why couldn't this be one of them. The paint has been scientifically dated to the 17th century.
There is also a bas relief on the statue base of a Poussin drawing of
'Amor vincit Pan,' and the painting is full of Poussin elements and symbolisms. The statue in the painting of Bacchus is actually the statue of the Nile River God Osiris in the Vatican Museum. Poussin was an intellectual painter, and he is probably the only one who would have equated Bacchus and Osiris. A true Poussin expert needs to see this painting, one who has read, researched and seen all of Poussin's works. There are affinities with Poussin's last painting of Apollo and Daphne, in that the painting reflects the moment just before the major event is to take place.
Posted by: J. Brown | 11/04/2012 at 02:41 AM