Painter to the King

Sackville's third novel is the most confident expression yet of her extraordinary gifts... an entirely immersive book...This is one of the finest historical novels of recent years -- Sarah Perry * Guardian *
What especially thrills is Sackville's style, which revels in risk and play ... In Painter to the King Sackville has written not only by far the finest novel of its kind that I have ever read, but one of the finest historical novels of recent years. For her skill and daring, her grasp of both subject and form, and her masterly chiaroscuro of human failure and endeavour, she is as distinct among her peers as Velázquez was among his -- Sarah Perry * Guardian *
Working in luminous and meticulous prose, Sackville achieves an almost miraculous intimacy with her subject. Painter to the King is the most engrossing fictional study of visual art I have ever encountered, giving us not only a persuasive account of Velázquez's formation and milieu but a ravishing survey of the very substances and textures of his sensory world. It is, in its own right, an astonishing work of art -- Paraic O'Donnell
Sackville writes beautifully, imagining the court in painterly detail: its fashions, its stultifying formalities, its hierarchies and petty, poisonous rivalries. She has the art os weaving Velázquez's works [...] through the developing relationship, even friendship, of Diego and Felipe... Painter to the King is stately, [...] Sackville's summoning of time and place is exquisitely done -- Laura Freeman * Spectator *
Sackville's sumptuous verbal artistry both fills history's gaps, and offers via its kaleidoscopic language a response to the paintings' ever-shifting qualities... The novel flecks its pursuit of the artist, across paintings and documents, with the shimmer and dazzle of its rhapsodic prose -- Boyd Tonkin * Arts Desk *
The kind of novel that makes you fall in love with reading all over again: rich, kaleidoscopic, evocative and hugely moving. Painter to the King renders the past in intimate, exquisite, enthralling detail -- Alex Preston
For some years now, Amy Sackville has been known for the exquisite quality of her prose. With her third novel, she has tried something different, something more audacious, perhaps, and proves more than equal to the challenge. A work of great subtlety and sophistication, Painter to the King is a surprisingly tender portrait of a genius -- Rupert Thomson
An authentic glimpse into the painter's methods... Superb -- Antonia Senior * The Times *
Through Velazquez's eyes, we are shown the splendours and the miseries of Philip's life and court. We watch the unfolding of the artist's genius for depicting the physical reality of that world and its inhabitants. Sackville's prose summons up the Spanish past in rich and appropriately visual detail -- Nick Rennison * Sunday Times *
Sackville - a talented stylist - [shows us] the world as Velázquez does... where tiny details are always as significant as the whole picture... Rewarding -- Claire Allfree * Daily Mail *
Sackville triumphs... Stately, lush prose is interspersed with descriptions [and] Sackville uses language that is at once meticulous and rhapsodic -- Elizabeth Wassell * Irish Times *
Sackville's quick and lyrical style captures the heft and shape of seventeenth-century Spain without sacrificing lightness of touch, a quality she shares with Velázquez's -- Ben Eastham * TLS *
It's an immersive and richly evocative imagining of a period, but also brilliantly inventive, and with a really seductive self-assurance to its voice -- Selected by Daniel Hahn as a Book of the Year * Spectator *
Sackville's prose summons up the Spanish past in rich and appropriately visual detail * Sunday Times *
Fabulous * Strong Words *
Painter to the King took my breath away. In form and style it's a masterpiece; it should have won all the prizes going. -- Melissa Harrison * Guardian *
Intriguing and insightful...lyrical...a compelling read * New Books *
An immersive and richly evocative imagining of a period...brilliantly inventive * Spectator *