Angelica, Paintress of Minds
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Barbican Press
Published:2nd Jul '20
Should be back in stock very soon
Angelica Kaufman is so successful that when she comes to England as a young woman in 1766 a word is coined: Angelicamad.
‘Miller’s intricate fictions are lit by the dark flicker of a strong and original imagination.’ – Hilary Mantel
This sparky, true life novel tells the life story of a woman who battled misogyny to become one of the greatest artists of the Enlightenment Period. After fifteen triumphant years in London, she flees to Italy following the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots.
In Rome, as an old lady, a lively young artist and model names Lucia is Angelica’s guest. And she’s pregnant, ridded with the scandal Angelica has been trying to avoid all her life.
She is the girl I trained myself not to be.
Men can do as they like, but women risk losing everything. In her studio, Angelica relives her journey from a poor background to international fame. She paints her friends (Antonio Canova, Germaine de Stael, Emma Hamilton and Goethe among others) and draws us into her fascinating past. Angelica, Paintress of Minds tells of a gifted and powerful woman with a kind heart.
"Miller’s intricate fictions are lit by the dark flicker of a strong and original imagination." – Hilary Mantel
"The novel is beautifully written, with phrases like the young Angelica thinking“titles make a special shape in the air when people speak them, high and arched”. Kauffmann is presented as hard-working, loyal, kind, sometimes susceptible but more determined than she thinks she is. She had to be, for hers was a man’s world."- The Historical Novel Society
"Wonderfully rich material. Novelist Miranda Miller has made a swashbuckling drama out of it in what she calls a "fictionalised autobiography". There are some great set pieces when Miranda Miller brings together Angelica's experiences and some of the civic, military and social "events" of her time." - Camden Journal
"Miranda Miller’s novel, a first-person account of the life of the 18th-century Swiss neoclassical painter Angelica Kauffman, faithfully reflects the career of the somewhat overlooked founding member of the Royal Academy… A fascinating life and a fine painter in what’s a story well told by Miller."- Morning Star
"A richly imagined and authoritative portrait of a fascinating and important painter, and a woman who was one of the most famous people of her era. Miller explores Angelica’s vivid and conflicted inner life with panache and passion."- Jean McNeil, author of The Ice Diaries
ISBN: 9781909954410
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
280 pages