Today is my stop on the blog tour for “Will Write For Wine” & “Stories I Stole From Lord Byron’s Bastard” by Sara McBride. So keep reading for a guest post from the author, a review of one of the books from me, and a giveaway.
Image: painting of Portrait of Two Men From Dresden.
Credit: Portrait of Two Men by Marietta Robusti, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
Stories I Stole from Lord Byron’s Bastard is a collection inspired by Venetian history. The fictional character, Alexis Lynn, wrote these stories in the novel Will Write for Wine by Sara W. McBride, but they are fun stand-alone adventures to be enjoyed with an excellent glass of Italian wine.
What inspired the story, “The Gentleman’s Portrait by a Pregnant Man?”
I’m absolutely in love with Venice and the Renaissance, so it’s no surprise that two of the stories in the collection feature famous Renaissance Venetian artists. The story, “The Gentleman’s Portrait by a Pregnant Man,” was inspired by Tintoretto’s eldest daughter, Marietta Robusti, who became a well-known portraitist from 1570-1590. And the idea of painting portraits of dead children was a thing at the time, although it was unusual.
Female artists during the Renaissance—Yes, there were several—often dressed as men to hide their gender, as it was inappropriate for a woman to study the naked male form. Even married women were not allowed to study the naked male form.
The art historian Giorgio Vasari, wrote about his contemporary, a female artist, the 16th century Florentine Dominican nun, Plautilla Nelli, that she “would have done marvelous things if, like men, she had been able to study and to devote herself to drawing and copying living and natural things.” Nelli’s restored 21-foot-long canvas of The Last Supper is displayed in Florence in the museum of Santa Maria Novella Church. It’s fabulous! I actually like it better than Da Vinci’s Last Supper in Milan. Go check it out!
During the Renaissance, women were not considered citizens, but property of their father, then their husband upon marriage. Thus, women could not earn a living as a professional artist because they could not write invoices. However, a convent could be paid for commissions and services, so Plautilla Nelli ran an all female art studio.
Marietta Robusti could not work independently and wasn’t part of an artistic convent, but was her father’s most accomplished assistant. The number of works produced from Tintoretto’s studio greatly decreased—some say by half—after her death. It will never be known the number of paintings produced by Marietta that are now attributed to Tintoretto. However, the painting entitled Portrait of Two Men, the painting upon which I based this story, is signed by MR and thought to be Marietta Robusti’s only surviving signed work. It hangs in the Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Germany.
Other canvases now thought to be painted by Marietta are:
Old Man and Boy, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Portrait of Ottavio Strada, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Head of Man, After the Antique, a drawing sold at Christie’s in Paris in 2021 for €100,000. Scrawled across the drawing are the words “this head is by the hand of modanna Marietta,” hypothesized to be added by her father to distinguish the drawing from others in his studio. The drawing depicts the Roman emperor Vitellius, and is based on a copy of a bust Tintoretto kept in his workshop.
Marietta’s talents were not completely forgotten and at least two biographers commented on her. “Marietta had a brilliant mind like her father. She painted such works that men were astonished by her talent,” writes Carlo Ridolfi, author of a biography of Jacopo Tintoretto and two of his children, Domenico and Marietta, first published in 1642. According to Ridolfi, Marietta dressed as a boy in order to assist her father on his projects and produced works of her own invention. Raffaello Borghini, a contemporary of Tintoretto’s reported that Marietta was requested as a court artist by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and King Philip II of Spain. However, “Greatly loving his daughter, [Tintoretto] did not want her taken from his sight,” writes Borghini.
The Venetian Renaissance master, Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto, is buried in Madonna dell’Orto in Venice next to his favorite daughter nicknamed, “La Tintoretta.” His house, where he lived from 1574 until his death in 1594, can be viewed at No. 3399 Fondamenta dei Mori. It has a plaque remembering Tintoretto, and the facade features a small statue of Hercules with a club.
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Blurbs
Stories I Stole from Lord Byron's Bastard
“If you’re wondering about the story that made Manu so angry he banished me from Venice, it’s in here.” –Alexis Lynn
Get ready for a fun evening of stories inspired by Venetian history. Thrill to the adventures of money-laundering plague nuns, a pregnant Renaissance man,
a demonic Doge at the Devil’s Bridge, and other tales of ghosts, art, and love.
Following in the footsteps of Lord Byron’s obsession with Venetian history, Alexis Lynn wrote these stories in the novel, Will Write for Wine. We proudly
share these standalone stories with you over the objection of her paramour Manu, a modern-day Casanova and illegitimate descendent of Lord Byron himself.
So, pour yourself a glass of your favorite vino, let your dog or cat curl up at your feet (or let your cat do whatever it wants), and settle into these
mostly … partly … somewhat true tales.
In vino est fictio.
Purchase Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Stole-Lord-Byrons-Bastard-ebook/dp/B0B27TS5GL
Will Write for Wine
Alexis Lynn is tired of living for others. She chucks her twenty year scientific career, and possibly her marriage, to write full time in Venice, Italy.
But when Alexis gets involved with a flirtatious Venetian, a man who champions her writing, events spiral out of control. The old Alexis knows she should
salvage her marriage, but the new Alexis is quickly falling for the charms of this modern day Casanova. And she doesn't know which Alexis will prevail.
This is going to require a whole lot of wine.
Purchase Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Will-Write-Wine-Alexis-Novel/dp/0990767043
Author Bio
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Sara W. McBride, like many modern-day biological researchers, invents new swear words to sling at million-dollar machines while locked in a dark hole of a decaying academic hall. This has caused her to witness ghosts and create a romantic fantasy life within her head, which she now puts down on very non-technological paper with her favorite Jane Austen style quill pen.
Her first novel in the Alexis Lynn series, Will Write for Wine, and the companion short story collection, Stories I Stole from Lord Byron’s Bastard, both set in Venice, Italy, were recently released by Puck Publishing. She’s hard at work on the second Alexis Lynn novel, a Regency mystery series, and a haunted play. She strongly feels the world needs more haunted plays.
Find Sara at https://www.puckpublishing.com/
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My review of Stories I Stole from Lord Byron's Bastard:
Five out of five stars.
“This is an excellent collection of stories, which I became so immersed in that I ended up devouring them in one sitting. They're well-written, and entertaining tales, which I highly recommend if you're a fan of stories like these. I really don't know what else to say about this book, except to tell you to grab your copy and find out if you end up enjoying them as much as I did.”
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Enter the giveaway below for your chance to win a copy of one of the books; there are two books - one copy of each title - up for grabs.
