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That's when I saw that painting, behind his head. All blues and yellows and reddish brown, as translucent as lacquer. It had to be a Dutch master. Just then a private found a little kid covered with tablecloths behind some dishes in a sideboard cabinet. We'd almost missed him.By the end of "Love Enough," this first of eight interrelated stories tracing the history of "Girl in Hyacinth Blue," the painting's fate at the hands of guilt-riddled Engelbrecht fils is in question. Unfortunately, there is no doubt about the probable destiny of the previous owners, the Vredenburg family of Rotterdam, who take center stage in the powerful "A Night Different From All Other Nights." Vreeland handles this tale with subtlety and restraint, setting it at Passover, the year before the looting, and choosing to focus on the adolescent Hannah Vredenburg's difficult passage into adulthood in the face of an uncertain future. In the next story, "Adagia," she moves even further into the past to sketch "how love builds itself unconsciously ... out of the momentous ordinary" in a tender portrait of a longtime marriage. Back and back Vreeland goes, back through other owners, other histories, to the very inception of the painting in the homely, everyday objects of the Vermeer household--a daughter's glass of milk, a son's shirt in need of buttons, a wife's beloved sewing basket--"the unacknowledged acts of women to hallow home." Girl in Hyacinth Blue ends with the painting's subject herself, Vermeer's daughter Magdalena, who first sends the portrait out into the world as payment for a family debt, then sees it again, years later at an auction.
She thought of all the people in all the paintings she had seen that day, not just Father's, in all the paintings of the world, in fact. Their eyes, the particular turn of a head, their loneliness or suffering or grief was borrowed by an artist to be seen by other people throughout the years who would never see them face to face. People who would be that close to her, she thought, a matter of a few arms' lengths, looking, looking, and they would never know her.In this final passage, Susan Vreeland might be describing her own masterpiece as well as Vermeer's. --Alix Wilber
The territory for this book is The Netherlands, as well as the spiritual territory of my love for painting and for lives lived in other eras. I bear a Dutch name, and there's a small town in North Holland named Vreeland. More than that I did not have, but I could read, and thus could imagine my way into a heritage and feel some sense of personal origins in the world. Combining these elements, much like a painter designs a composition, resulted in Girl in Hyacinth Blue.
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Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 1454874-n
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Girl in Hyacinth Blue tells the story of an imaginary painting by Vermeer, and the aspirations and longings of those whose lives it illuminates, and darkens. From a proud father regretting his lost love to a compromised French noblewoman, from a hanged girl to Vermeer's own gifted daughter, Susan Vreeland's beautiful and luminous tales link to form an evocative jewel. If you loved GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, you will love this international bestselling story of the girl behind a Vermeer painting. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780755305308
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780755305308
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. If you loved GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, you will love this international bestselling story of the girl behind a Vermeer painting. Seller Inventory # B9780755305308
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 180 pages. 7.76x5.04x0.51 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0755305302
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Book Description Condition: New. 2002. 2nd Edition. Paperback. A jewel of a novel about art, beauty and desire. Num Pages: 192 pages. BIC Classification: FYB. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 129 x 13. Weight in Grams: 146. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780755305308
Book Description Condition: New. 2002. 2nd Edition. Paperback. A jewel of a novel about art, beauty and desire. Num Pages: 192 pages. BIC Classification: FYB. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 129 x 13. Weight in Grams: 146. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780755305308
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 6666-HCE-9780755305308