The Muse by Jessie Burton
In the mid 1960s Odelle Bastien, a immigrant from the
Caribbean finds a plumb job at the Skelton Institute of Art. One day, an acquaintance brings in a painting
for authentication. The painting
belonged to his mother and never left her bedroom wall.
The painting, it was suspected, was a lost work of Isaac
Robles, a gifted but short lived Spanish artist. Odelle is suddenly in the
midst of the mystery of Isaac Robles.
She is drawn into the life, too, of Marjorie Quick, the woman who hired
her at the Skelton. Odelle is unprepared
for the intrigue that walked in the door with the painting. There are questions about it’s provenance . If this is one of Isaac Robles’ paintings it
is an important and expensive find. With
it’s discovery and the new relationship she has with its owner, she doesn’t know
who to trust.
The story alternates with the story in Spain during the mid
1930s when Isaac and his sister, are in the employ of the Schloss family,
including Olive, the daughter of a Viennese art dealer and an English heiress
with too much time on her hands. Olive is
an artist with no chance of realizing her dream of attending art school. Isaac also is a painter but he is also a
young man caught up in the revolutionary fervor
in Spain. His sister, Teresa,
becomes a servant in the house and a confidant of Olive. Between the three of them, their lives tangle
in a deception that will reverberate for decades.