A dazzling and spellbinding debut about a mysterious painting, the secrets it keeps, and the two women connected across centuries by a quest to discover the truth – for readers of Geraldine Brooks, Tracy Chevalier and Maggie O’Farrell.
“I’d like TheVanishing Point to encourage the reader’s sense of curiosity about art in a way that is fun and accessible. I hope the book shows that it’s good to challenge received wisdom from the establishment sometimes. I think it’s important to try to listen to the artist, first and foremost.”
– Andrea Hotere.
Las Meninas by Spanish master, Diego Velázquez is one of the most famous paintings of all time. It has confounded and intrigued artists, art historians and those who stand in front of it in Madrid’s Prado Museum for centuries. Picasso called it a painting full of with curses…
London, 1991: Alex Johns, trainee art intern at the Courtauld, believes a hidden secret lies within Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas – one of the most written about paintings of all time.
Her own mother died in mysterious circumstances while trying to uncover its secrets and Alex is troubled by memories of her own encounter as a child with the girl in the painting – the Infanta Margarita – who continues to haunt her. Alex must take up her mother’s work and find evidence to uncover the truths within the canvas.
A treacherous trail through the art world, the church and 17th century Spanish Court via mysterious drawings, letters and cryptic notes has Alex trying to piece together what happened in King Philip’s court…But powerful players will do anything to stop these truths coming to light.
Madrid, 1656: The Infanta Margarita senses that those around her believe the royal household is cursed.
She wonders why her father, the King, is a pale shadow of himself and why the Queen is distressed; what threatens the royal offspring? She struggles to fight for her own destiny as the forces around her seek to marry her off and send her from the home she loves.
But will Alex live to share them with the art world or is she, too, cursed? The Vanishing Point slowly reveals the secrets in the painting that have been closely guarded for centuries.
A mesmerising dual timeline novel, reminiscent of Girl with A Pearl Earring, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, and with a thrilling Da Vinci Code-esque twist. Both a treatise on how art is a window into another time, and those who have been lost to history, and a compelling argument for how the scandals of the royal court were coded by Velázquez in his masterpiece, The Vanishing Point launches a remarkable new voice in historical fiction.
‘This is an astonishing and beautiful novel that brings the art world into sharp relief, as well as a gutsy mysterious story of one woman’s journey into the past. Simply a masterpiece in its own right.’ – Fiona Kidman
Andrea Hotere, daughter of renowned Aotearoa artist Ralph Hotere and acclaimed poet Cilla McQueen, grew up in Ōtepoti Dunedin. After studying history at the University of Otago (BA Hons) and journalism at the University of Canterbury, she travelled to London where she worked on newspapers and magazines. Returning to Aotearoa, she worked on television documentaries and programmes as a researcher, investigative journalist and as a producer. Andrea Hotere is the co-author (with Priscilla Pitts) of Undreamed Of… 50 years of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, which was longlisted in the 2018 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Andrea connects to Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa, and Aotearoa, England and Scotland. She lives in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland with husband Richard Naish and their three children.
The Vanishing Point by Andrea Hotere | Ultimo Press| Published October 2023 | $37.99
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