Great historical novel set in Holland with the Dutch artists of the 17th. century. I really enjoyed this book and am looking to read more from Rosalind Laker.

A long book for a long day of flying. As I hopped across the United States via plane, the time passed quickly as I engrossed myself in this story. Francesca lives in Amsterdam at the time of Rembrandt's last years. her father is a painter, and she hopes to be one as well. It is a saga of years of the family's life. Francesca's father is a gambler with a periodic income. Her sisters are also trained to be painters, but it is Francesca who eventually becomes an apprentice to Vermeer. Unfortunately, her family's money is tied up with a controlling and conniving man who has determined to marry Francesca, but she is in love with another man. This is also a time in Dutch history when the French attempt to take over. All of this comes together for an enthralling novel.

If you love Dutch painting and/or historical fiction, you'll like this book. It is long, but when given chunks of time to read, it has a good pace. (Being who I am, I read it over a period of ten hours on planes, finishing right before landing.)

This novel drew me in completely. Set in the late 1600's in Holland, the saga follows Franscesca, one of three daughters of an accomplished Dutch painter. She in turn, gets the opportunity to apprentice with Vermeer (ok, so I love name-dropping in historical fiction!). There is plenty of flirtation, matchmaking, seemingly unattainable goals and desires to beget. There is even some suspense to these ends!

Being one of three sisters, and a painter, it was easy to identify with the characters. I look forward to reading Laker's other works.

Let me say this first: the story is not about “tulip mania" as synopsis on GR and Amazon would let you believe. In fact, the famous mania happened many years before the events in the book took place. Instead, art, love, music, and political intrigue are the main themes of this novel set in the 17th century Netherlands aka the Dutch Golden Age.

At the center of it is the fictional Visser family. Hendrick Visser is a decent painter, former apprentice of the great Frans Halls and a friend of Rembrandt. The sale of his paintings would earn him a comfortable living were it not for his compulsive gambling and incessant drinking. His vices continually force his family into a hand-to-mouth existence and always on the edge of devastation and financial ruin. When Hendrick's wife dies in childbirth, his three daughters, Francesca, Aletta, and Sybylla, become even more vulnerable to their father's vice-driven whims and desperate acts. It is Visser's gambling that thrusts his family into circumstances that cause his eldest and most talented daughter, Francesca, to face an uncertain future at the hands of a devious suitor who threatens Hendrick with financial ruin. The other sisters suffer for their father's duplicity as well. It would take many twists and turns, seemingly unattainable goals for all three of them to find their happiness.

The book is long and slow at the beginning. But somehow it grew on me. I enjoyed the setting, the historical details, the snippets about daily life of the Dutch artists and merchants. Having been to the cities described in the novel - Amsterdam, Delft, and Haarlem- it was easy to picture the scenery. It’s on that trip through Holland where I actually understood and started to appreciate the Dutch masters in fullest. And I think that is where the author’s talent shines through. Her descriptions of the paintings are spot on. She intertwines them with the ups and downs of the Visser family creating a memorable pallet of light and darkness, of deceptive simplicity and burst of color.

I think if you are a fan of the Dutch art and historical fiction in general, you will enjoy the story.

3.5 Stars

I read this book ten years ago, after reading another novel by Laker, To Dance With Kings. I enjoy her writing style, although her character portrayals are typical of the time period she's writing and of the time the books were written (1970s-1980s).

All in all, an enjoyable read that I will most likely pick up again.

DON'T MAKE VIOLENCE AND ABUSE JUST ANOTHER PLOT DEVICE IN YOUR NOVEL!
I was attracted by the story but at the very beginning, there was unnecessary scene (in my opinion) of a child abuse. The end. I stopped there.

This period of Dutch history is such an inspirational theme for historical fiction writers. I had read before, 'The Girl With the Pear Earring' and 'Girl in Hyacinth Blue', but 'The Golden Tulip' is the crowning jewel of all these books.
Written in the finest manner of realism, Rosalind Laker brings us stories of three sisters, daughters of a fictional Dutch painter. Francesca and Aletta want to be artists like their father Hendrick, Sybylla wants to marry well.
All three of them encounter problems on their way to happiness, as Francesca departs to be an apprentice for Vermeer, Aletta and Hendric have a falling out, and Sybylla is a vain little girl.
My favorite characters were Aletta and William, but I detested Hendrick. I don't know if it's just the historical difference, but I'm positive that Anna's love would have faded after a few years of marriage. I didn't see anything wrong with Aletta selling her paintings, and Hendrick would have done well with a few years in prison.
What I didn't like that much was the stile. Rosalind Laker makes remarks all the time about things that could have easily been incorporated to the story (so called dummy monologues) or explains things that the reader could have easily figured out, as if she didn't trust that it was possible. It's not such a big deal, but it did make a good instead of excellent book.

Very descriptive and accurate book especially the descriptions of 17th Century Holland and historical figures and their work. Mostly clean and interesting.

Francesca Visser is the oldest of three daughters of Amsterdam painter, Hendrick Visser. She and her next younger sister, Aletta, are both being taught by Hendrick to be painters. Like most artists of the period, Hendrick is temperamental and extravagant, often putting the family in financial trouble. When the mother, Anna, dies in childbirth, Francesca takes over the running of the household in addition to her painting. She is eventually set to be apprenticed to Jan Vermeer in Delft, but that is jeopardized when Hendrick loses the tuition money gambling with Ludolf van Deventer – an art patron with a shady background. Pieter van Doorne, a successful tulip merchant, provides the funds for Francesca to get her apprenticeship, but Deventer does all he can to blackmail Hendrick and to acquire Francesca. Pieter and Francesca gradually fall in love as she becomes a master painter under Vermeer (and with his same style of painting.) Meanwhile, Ludolf is engaged in spying for France; Aletta is disowned by Hendrick for selling paintings without his permission and marries a man she rehabilitates after his legs are amputated; Sybylla, the third sister elopes with a painter on the eve of her marriage to a wealthy banker; and the French invade Holland. All this and more in 585 pages!

Holy crap, longest book ever. I brought it with me to the Isle of Wight because it's SO long and heavy and the print is tiny that I figured the only way I'd ever read it was if I was trapped with it on a long journey, and the choice was to either read it or be bored for 6 hours. :P

And actually, it was really good! Beth reading over my shoulder found it dull but I actually enjoyed it, even if it WAS hellishly long. The story followed the lives of painter Hendrick Visser's three children over about ten years, mostly focused on eldest daughter Francesca. I think the book could easily have been only her story because there was a lot less of middle daughter Aletta and youngest Sybylla in the latter half. I found myself skimming over some of the Aletta/Constantijn parts because I was just not as interested, although Sybylla was FUN. She was very much of the idea that she was going to marry the richest man she could find, but when she did find one who was rich enough for her to accept his proposal of course she also at the same time met poor, artist's apprentice Hans... ;)

I learnt a fair bit about the idea of painters being masters and having apprentices, and their pupils being indentured and a whole lot of fascinating 17th century bits and bobs. The setting was mostly Amsterdam and that was just lovely. The only parts that went over my head were the political bits speaking of the French and Spanish, because I don't know my European history very well - damn Australian school system! ;)

Hendrick was a really interesting character, extravagant with his gifts when he had money - which was not often. He drannk and gambled away most of it, sometimes winning big enough to last a while, sometimes losing big enough to threaten everything... and therein lies most of the story. One loss is so huge that he ends up promising his daughter, Francesca, to horrid old Ludolf if he helps him out of this hole. Not Hendrick's idea mind you, he is horrified! But Ludolf has him against a wall and blackmails him and totally takes control of Francesca's apprenticeship, sending her to the awful Geetruyd Wolff in Delft instead of the family already chosen for her board. And there it becomes all twisty and dark and omg Ludolf and Geetruyd combined are just evil! The strictest rules are set out for Francesca, banning her from seeing her friend Pieter (naturally the one she finally falls for) and from even writing to him. Geetruyd has a lot of power in the town and even when Francesca gives a letter to someone else to mail, it ends up back in the hands of Vrouw Wolff!

I wouldn't read it again but it'd be kind of awesome if there was a movie or something, because I did enjoy the story and the setting a lot - I just wish it could have been a lot shorter! And now it's made me want to go and read Girl with a Pearl Earring too :D

I loved the first chapter but found the rest of the first half of the book a tough read as I stopped enjoying the story line. The second half I really enjoyed, so I was glad I read it through to the end. The second half incorporates more story lines for more characters, or at least enriches and expands upon them, thus making it much more interesting.

I just could not get past the first several pages of the novel. I was interested in the story, but I found the writing too flat.

Delightful. Well written Characters and relationships. Beautiful descriptions of scenery and artwork.