Failure and Success in Equal Parts

A historical novel based around Jules Bastien-Lepage's obsession with the creation of his painting of Joan of Arc that today is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Set against the backdrop of the emergence of the French Third Republic and enmeshed in the political battle between Catholicism and Secularism, the context of the painting as a politically disruptive work is exposed. From Bastien-Lepage's days at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, his establishment of the naturalist school of painting, and involvement with the Royal Academy and Paris Salon, the book follows him to Domremy through to Julian Weir's decision to buy the painting for Erwin Davis.