Book Spotlight: The Paris Portrait by Heidi Eljarbo

 

Fabiola stumbles upon a clue that indicates a royal portrait went missing almost two hundred years ago. Is this true, or is there substance to the rumor?

 

Paris, France, 1973.
After an enjoyable but dusty road trip, Fabiola and her friends, Pippa and Cary, arrive in a small village on the outskirts of Paris to spend a few days with Fabiola’s brother Eivind and his family.

 

On their first evening there, Eivind shows Fabiola an ancient recipe book he bought at an auction. The book is filled with old writing, and he asks Fabiola to decipher the pages. After the others have gone to bed, she spends hours reading and is gripped by the last pages that have nothing to do with recipes for baked goods and stews. Certain the author was a famous portrait artist at the time of the French Revolution, Fabiola and her friends set out on a treacherous investigation, dodging murderers and thieves to learn the truth.

 

Versailles, France, 1789.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun— portraitist and close friend of the extravagant queen of France, Marie Antoinette—has already painted thirty portraits of the queen. Her contemporaries compare her to the old Dutch masters, calling her one of the greatest portrait painters of her time.

 

But outside on the streets, Paris is becoming more perilous with every day that passes. Madame Le Brun would be a fool to think the rumors of a revolution will pass, and aristocratic life will continue as before.

 

Amid the turmoil, she paints one final portrait of Marie Antoinette, knowing well her association with the queen could cause her to be arrested or executed. As chaos and riots in Paris turn to violence, Madame Le Brun flees with her young daughter, hoping her royal friend and the portrait will be safe.

 

This is Heidi Eljarbo’s third dual timeline novel about Norwegian art historian Fabiola Bennett—a captivating spin-off from her much-loved Soli Hansen Mysteries.

 

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/3nPAjB

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

 

HEIDI ELJARBO grew up in a home full of books, artwork, and happy creativity. She is the author of historical novels filled with courage, hope, mystery, adventure, and sweet romance during challenging times. She’s been named a master of dual timelines and often writes about strong-willed women of past centuries.

 After living in Canada, six US states, Japan, Switzerland, and Austria, Heidi now calls Norway home. She lives with her husband on a charming island and enjoys walking their Wheaten Terrier in any kind of weather, hugging her grandchildren, and has a passion for art and history.

 

Author Links:

 Website: https://www.heidieljarbo.com/

Twitter: @HeidiEljarbo

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Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/heidi-eljarbo

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Newsletter: https://www.heidieljarbo.com/newsletter

 

Book Spotlight: The Vow by Jude Berman

 

In a stunning work of feminist historical fiction for readers who loved Dawn Tripp’s Georgia and Whitney Scharer’s The Age of Light, Jude Berman brings painter Angelica Kauffman to life.

Accused of dressing as a boy to study in the prestigious galleries of eighteenth-century Italy, child prodigy Angelica Kauffman has set high goals for herself. She is determined to become a history painter, a career off-limits to women. To ensure her success, she has vowed never to marry.

Shattering the glass ceiling of her times, Kauffman paints royalty, mingles with illustrious artists, and becomes one of the only female founders of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. But her path is fraught with challenges and eventually she questions if a vow of a different sort is necessary if she is to answer the deepest call of her heart.

**Finalist for Historical Fiction at the 2024 American Fiction Awards**

“Jude Berman has created a spirited, engaging glimpse into the life of one of the most important artists of the eighteenth century. Kauffman was a true free spirit, dedicated to her art, and that is captured beautifully in this novel.”—Susanne Dunlap, author of The Portraitist: A Novel of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

“With skillful prose and classical descriptions, Berman paints a vivid portrait of a woman defying the constraints of her time, making this novel an unforgettable masterpiece in its own right.” —

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/br2a8w

Publisher’s Buy Link: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Vow/Jude-Berman/9781647427887

Jude Berman has a BA in art from Smith College and an EdD in cross-cultural communication from UMass Amherst. After a career in academic research, she built a freelance writing and editing business and ran two small Indie presses. She lives in Berkeley, CA, where she continues to work with authors and writes fiction.

In her free time, she volunteers for progressive causes, paints with acrylic watercolors, gardens, and meditates. The Die, metaphysical speculative fiction about saving democracy, was published in 2024.

Visit judeberman.com for Jude’s books and judeberman.org for her art.

Author Links:

Website: https://judeberman.com/

Art website: http://www.judeberman.org/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/judebermanauthor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judeberman/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jude.berman/

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@jude.berman

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jude-Berman/author/B0C9N4GDVJ

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/50381.Jude_Berman

 

16th-Century Masterpiece Reveals Cheese Glue Recipe

      by Rossella Lorenzi              

Sticky cheese might be the secret behind one of the most intriguing Mannerist paintings, according to a preliminary investigation carried out during restoration work.
Restorers had wondered what holds together the five poplar wood planks which make up “Visitation,” an enigmatic work by the 16th-century Mannerist Jacopo Pontormo.
“We believe they were pieced together with a caseine-based glue,” restorer Daniele Rossi told Discovery News. Caseine is a group of proteins commonly found in mammalian milk.
Photos: Restoring ‘Visitation’
“Cheese glue was very popular at that time, and was normally used to join wood planks. We are going to carry out special chemical analyses for bindings to get a definitive answer,” Rossi said.
Described in the 16th-century Compendium of Rational Secrets as a “great secret of nature, a “super glue which withstands dampness and heat,” cheese glue was already detailed in the artists’ manuals of both Theophilus, a 12th-century German monk and 15th-century Italian painter Cennino Cennini.
The recipe for the potent adhesive relied on polypeptide casein protein molecules, and included ingredients such as hot water and quicklime. The goat or cow cheese-based concoction resulted in a sticky and thick compound which dried hard as stone, making it extremely hard for wood joints to separate.
Photos: Da Vinci’s ‘Magi’ Hides Master’s Original Vision
“Whatever glue was used there, it was a powerful one. It’s still holding after five centuries,” Rossi said.
The source of inspiration for “The Greeting,” a video installation presented at the 1995 Venice Biennial by the Italian American artist Bill Viola, the dream-like Visitation is now the centerpiece of an exhibition on Mannerist artists Jacopo Carucci, also known as Pontormo (1494-1557), and Giovan Battista di Jacopo, a.k.a. Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540) which runs in Florence through July 20.
Pontormo was one of the last artists of the Florentine Renaissance. He was a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto, and one of the earliest of the Mannerist school, a style of art developed in Italy following the High Renaissance, which emphasized mental conception over realistic depiction.
Pontormo completed the Visitation around 1528-1529, but the oil painting remained almost unknown until 1904, when it was rediscovered in the church of San Michele in Carmignano, a village west of Florence, and attributed to Pontormo.
Michelangelo’s David Holding Secret Weapon?
The painting depicts in an almost metaphysical way the biblical meeting of the Virgin Mary, pregnant with Jesus, and Elisabeth, pregnant with St. John the Baptist. Staring fixedly into space, two statuesque figures in the background represent their alter egos.
The younger of the two wears the same color clothing of the Virgin Mary, but reversed. The older one appears to be Elizabeth shown in a sort of doubling.
 Naked Dwarf Revealed Again in Painting
“This intensely abstract atmosphere is sustained by the disproportionate size of the figures in comparison to the Florentine architectural backdrop and by the artist’s multiplication – as though in a mirror – of the number of figures witnessing the scene,” art critic Antonio Geremicca wrote in the exhibition catalog.
“These figurative devices make it more complicated to interpret the painting, whose significance scholars have yet to fathom in full,” he added.
Rossi’s restoration might help acquire new clues.
In addition to finding the super glue, the restorer filled 1,673 woodworm holes and removed the heavy repainting of past restorations. Incisive, luminous colors which previous interventions covered with a yellow varnish, re-emerged in full glory.
Photos: The Face of Da Vinci: An Enduring Mystery
“We discovered a bright blue sky beneath a black overpainting that had made it almost overcast, and Pontormo’s clouds are white and ragged,” Rossi said.
Previously unseen details were also unveiled.
“A woman is leaning out of a window and a white cloth is falling from a window ledge. A smiling donkey peeks out from behind the corner of a building, while two passers-by converse on a bench like masked mannequins,” Rossi said.
Image: Detail of The Visitation by Jacopo Pontormo. Credit: Daniele Rossihttp://news.discovery.com/history/art-history/16th-century-masterpiece-reveals-cheese-glue-recipe-140326.htm