Amsterdam, 1667. Pieter Blaeu, a young publisher, meets the aged, destitute painter Rembrandt van Rijn, and is powerfully drawn into his orbit. Together with a poet named Clara he begins a pursuit of the elusive man's confidence, in a quest that is at once a love affair and a layered, luminous portrait of a most mysterious artist and his world.

"Here are the sights, smells, sounds and colours of the Dutch golden age alchemised into fictional gold...The marriage of art, history and fiction has rarely been so alive. A cause for celebration" - "The Times".

"It is no mean feat for a young writer to pitch herself against the great master and attempt to achieve in prose the explorations of identity that Rembrandt achieved in paint...Van Rijn returns us to [the paintings] with a renewed sense of wonder" - "TLS".

"An enticing journey into the past, well observed and researched, and providing a tour of the alternative artistic life of the seventeenth century" - "Sunday Times".