Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death

Named a Top 100 Must-Read Book of 2023 by Time and a Best Book of 2023 by The New Yorker * Shortlisted for the 2024 Writers' Prize New York Times bestselling author Laura Cumming "combines first-rate art history with deeply felt memoir" (The Washington Post) in this fascinating, little-known story of the massive explosion in Holland that killed Carel Fabritius, renowned painter of The Goldfinch and A View of Delft and nearly killed Johannes Vermeer--two of the greatest artists of the 17th century. "Exquisite." --Simon Schama, The Guardian As a brilliant art critic and historian, Laura Cumming has explored the importance of art in life and can give us a perspective on the time and place in which the artist worked. Now, through the lens of one dramatic event in 17th-century Holland, Cumming "has fashioned a book that combines memoir, art criticism, and history to illuminating effect" (The New York Times Book Review). In 1654, the Thunderclap--an enormous explosion at a gunpowder store