I am Rembrandt's daughter by Lynn Cullen
Bloomsbury, 2008.
(Age 12-15) The painter Rembrandt van Rijn has lost popularity and is
living in poverty and disgrace in Amsterdam. Cornelia, the daughter of
one of his models, remembers life as it was when her mother was alive
and when Titus, his son by Saskia, also lived at home before his
marriage into the wealthy merchant class. Abandoned by their patrons
and frowned at by the respectable, Cornelia tries to sell paintings and
help her irascible old father. She plays in the studio as a child and
understands colour and form, but is allowed only to model, never to
paint. The fragility of life at that time is clearly shown when the
plague sweeps through the city, the poorer areas particularly
suffering.
The action moves back and forward in time, allowing the development of
a quite complex and unbelievable plot twist. The sounds, sights and
smells of life in seventeenth Amsterdam are captured quite vividly in
this lively story. The language is in places clumsy and anachronistic
but generally works well, and for those unfamiliar with Dutch names
there is a character list.
The novel is capitalising on the interest in Dutch painters and has a
list of Rembrandt's paintings. It would be particularly enjoyable for
readers aged 12-16 years who are interested in Rembrandt.
Jennifer Hamilton