Why am I passionate about this?

As an art historian and painter, I was inevitably drawn to the theme of artists and their muses when I started writing historical fiction. Female, passive, disempowered, and doomed sums up the fate of most muses. History is littered with their corpses - Rossetti’s model Lizzie Siddal committed suicide, Rodin’s model Camille Claudel went mad, Edie Sedgwick, made famous by Warhol, died of an overdose. The title ‘muse’ might offer immortality, but their lives were often hell on earth.  My books set out to understand what drove these women, some of whom were artists in their own right, to make such huge sacrifices. 


I wrote

Painted Ladies

By Lynn Bushell,

Book cover of Painted Ladies

What is my book about?

For twenty-five years, the legendary Marthe has been Pierre Bonnard's companion and muse. His captivating new model, Renée, thinks it's…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Muse

Lynn Bushell Why did I love this book?

I liked this book, because for once the 'genius' is a woman and the muse a man, albeit a reluctant one. The man in this instance has been credited with a masterpiece painted by a woman who feels she can best maintain her artistic freedom by not becoming famous. Well, what man turns down the chance of recognition? The book also asks some interesting questions such as what critics of the past looked for when deciding if a painting was a masterpiece – whether the artist was male or female being high on the list!

By Jessie Burton,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Muse as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller

A picture hides a thousand words . . .

On a hot July day in 1967, Odelle Bastien climbs the stone steps of the Skelton gallery in London, knowing that her life is about to change forever. Having struggled to find her place in the city since she arrived from Trinidad five years ago, she has been offered a job as a typist under the tutelage of the glamorous and enigmatic Marjorie Quick. But though Quick takes Odelle into her confidence, and unlocks a potential she didn't know she had, she remains a mystery…


Book cover of Girl with a Pearl Earring

Lynn Bushell Why did I love this book?

What I loved about this book was that the atmosphere pervading it was so like the feeling I got from looking at Vermeer's paintings, including the title picture. It has a  quality of stillness and silence that makes you want to hold your breath. 

Griet's treatment at the hands of Vermeer's family isn't that much better than that meted out to most girls in her position, but you feel – more than usually – that the beauty surrounding her, compensated for it.  She might not have agreed of course.

By Tracy Chevalier,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Girl with a Pearl Earring as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times bestselling novel by the author of A Single Thread and At the Edge of the Orchard

Translated into thirty-nine languages and made into an Oscar-nominated film, starring Scarlett Johanson and Colin Firth

Tracy Chevalier transports readers to a bygone time and place in this richly-imagined portrait of the young woman who inspired one of Vermeer's most celebrated paintings.

History and fiction merge seamlessly in this luminous novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. Girl with a Pearl Earring tells the story of sixteen-year-old Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius . .…


Book cover of The Weeping Woman: A Novel

Lynn Bushell Why did I love this book?

We all know that Picasso wasn't very nice to his muses – nothing unusual there. He was arrogant and with a massive sense of entitlement. Dora Maar had good reason to weep. She was an artist herself – a successful painter & photographer, gaining commissions historically awarded to men and creating a radical new image of the modern woman  that's until she met Picasso. When she started to cause trouble he had her put away. It's extraordinary how many muses ended up in asylums. Unlike Rodin's muse she did get out, however. In Valdes' novel the story doesn't exactly end happily but in reality she did go on working, as a photographer, up till her death at eighty-nine. Good for you, Dora.

By Zoe Valdes, David Frye (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Weeping Woman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the prestigious Azorin Prize for Fiction, the best-selling novel about love, sacrifice, and Picasso's mistress, Dora Maar.

A writer resembling Zoe Valdes a Cuban exile living in Paris with her husband and young daughter is preparing a novel on the life of Dora Maar, one of the most promising artists in the Surrealist movement until she met Pablo Picasso. The middle-aged Picasso was already the god of the art world's avant-garde. Dora became his lover, muse, and ultimately, his victim. She became The Weeping Woman captured in his famous portrait, the mistress he betrayed with other mistress-muses, and…


Book cover of The Artist’s Muse

Lynn Bushell Why did I love this book?

How much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice, the book asks its heroine. It's time the victims had their say and it's a question Kerry Postle tackles head-on. Wally Neuzel was a model to both Gustave Klimt and Egon Schiele, giants of the Neue Sachlichkeit in Vienna in the early 1900s, artists who in today's terms, got away with murder. The novel highlights the delicate position a girl was in if she chose to model for an artist albeit a famous one. It might secure her a place in history, but models were regarded as little better than prostitutes, rejected (once they'd had their way with them, of course) by the very bourgeoisie who bought the paintings and often by the artists themselves. 

By Kerry Postle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Artist’s Muse as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

‘The author tells an evocative story that is both illuminating and engrossing at the same time.’ Allie Burns, author of The Lido Girls

‘Lush and evocative.’ Rosemary Smith

‘The writing elevates this beyond many historical novels.’ Joseph Morgan Vienna 1907

Wally Neuzil must find a way to feed her family. Having failed in many vocations, Wally has one last shot: esteemed artist Gustav Klimt needs a muse, and Wally could be the girl he’s been waiting for. But Wally soon discovers that there is much more to her role than just sitting looking pretty. And while she had hoped to…


Book cover of Tulip Fever

Lynn Bushell Why did I love this book?

The muse occupies a slightly different role in Deborah Moggach's novel in that she spends a large part of the book supposedly already dead. Muses often exerted a posthumous influence on their artists, usually reflecting a legacy of guilt on the artist's part for his mistreatment or neglect. (Rossetti is a case in point. He had all his poems buried with his muse Lizzie Siddal, only to request permission to exhume them years later.) The painter, in this case, Jan van Loos, remains true, spending his life painting portraits of his muse Sophia and their love. Perhaps to be a muse, even a dead one, wasn't all bad.         

By Deborah Moggach,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tulip Fever as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A gorgeous novel' Mail on Sunday

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes a thrilling story of power, lust and deception...

Seventeenth-century Amsterdam - a city in the grip of tulip fever.

Sophia's husband Cornelis is one of the lucky ones grown rich from this exotic new flower. To celebrate, he commissions a talented young artist to paint him with his beautiful bride. But as the portrait grows, so does the passion between Sophia and the painter; and ambitions, desires and dreams breed an intricate deception and a reckless gamble.

Now a major film starring Oscar…


Explore my book 😀

Painted Ladies

By Lynn Bushell,

Book cover of Painted Ladies

What is my book about?

For twenty-five years, the legendary Marthe has been Pierre Bonnard's companion and muse. His captivating new model, Renée, thinks it's time her rival stepped aside. But Marthe won't give up her place in history without a fight. 

Book cover of The Muse
Book cover of Girl with a Pearl Earring
Book cover of The Weeping Woman: A Novel

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Interested in painting, the Netherlands, and Pablo Picasso?

Painting 58 books
The Netherlands 85 books
Pablo Picasso 26 books