A tale of art beauty lust greed deception and retribution -- set in a refined society ablaze with tulip fever. In 1630s Amsterdam tulipomania has seized the populace. Everywhere men are seduced by the fantastic exotic flower. But for wealthy merchant Cornelis Sandvoort it is his young and beautiful wife Sophia who stirs his soul. She is the prize he desires the woman he hopes will bring him the joy that not even his considerable fortune can buy. Cornelis yearns for an heir but so far he and Sophia have failed to produce one. In a bid for immortality he commissions a portrait of them both by the talented young painter Jan van Loos. But as Van Loos begins to capture Sophia's likeness on canvas a slow passion begins to burn between the beautiful young wife and the talented artist. As the portrait unfolds so a slow dance is begun among the household's inhabitants. Ambitions desires and dreams breed a grand deception--and as the lies multiply events move toward a thrilling and tragic climax. In this richly imagined international bestseller Deborah Moggach has created the rarest of novels--a lush lyrical work of fiction that is also compulsively readable. Seldom has a novel so vividly evoked a time a place and a passion.
