The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes and The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable were both published only a few months ago and are the authors’ debut novels. The books have certain similarities in that both are based on real life characters from the 18th century and the authors have created their fiction by researching what documents are available and filling in the gaps.
In The Painter’s Daughters Howes tells the story of Peggy and Molly, the two daughters of the painter, Thomas Gainsborough. The novel follows their childhood in rural Suffolk to Bath and to adulthood and the mental health struggles Molly has which leads Peggy to become her carer. In The Instrumentalist Constable focuses on the orphan and musical prodigy, Anna Maria della Pietà, who becomes a student of Antonio Vivaldi at the height of the Republic of Music in Venice.
Both authors create strong central female characters who have become shadowy figures in history.
An exhibition of Gainsborough’s paintings of his daughters at different ages led Howes to investigate their story. “There is so little about the girls,” commented Howes, “but Gainsborough’s letters have survived and there was just enough detail on which to base the book.” Howes was also interested in the mental health aspect of Molly’s story as her own grandmother was sent to a mental institution in the 50’s and never came out.
Constable comes from a musical family and she also plays flute, piano and sings. Whilst working as a journalist she discovered that Vivaldi worked in an all-girls orphanage in Venice and the women and girls from the orphanage were given a musical education and directly contributed to his music. Constable was staggered that nothing had already been written about this important aspect of Vivaldi’s life. As she carried out her research one name kept occurring – Anna Maria della Pietà and thus she became the main character in the novel.
Howes and Constable were able to visit Bath and Venice to help to create a strong sense of place in the novels. This was less successful for Howes as Bath is now a tourist city although she was able to see Gainsborough’s house in The Circus. Molly and Peggy hate Bath and Howes explained that in the 18th century Bath would have been a “mucky, smelly town packed with invalids coming to take the waters.” For Constable standing outside the Venice music conservatoire “felt like I was stepping into my book!”
Both books have far reaching themes and ideas. In The Painter’s Daughters love, class, the position of women in the 18th century and the few options that were open to them are explored as well as the taboo of mental health. In The Instrumentalist the precarious nature of Anna Maria’s position and the danger of being a prodigy who outshines the maestro is investigated. Constable gives her synaesthesia in order to visualise the music that is so important to her. But, says Constable, “if Anna Maria doesn’t make it the abyss is always there.”
Both books show the central characters trying to gain some power over what happens to them when they are at the mercy of the creative male genius of Vivaldi and of Gainsborough.
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