Judith Merkle Riley

I read this book as an older teenager or young adult, sometime in the early 90's when it first came out.  I loved it back then and I've thought about it periodically over the years.  So when I saw it randomly on a library book shelf of course I went for it immediately.  It was just as good as I'd remembered and having some sophistication under my belt seemed to help my level of understanding in

The story opens with Susanna Dallet confessing it was her fate and her sins that caused her to fall into the world of the French court in 1514, all because she was trained to paint by her Flemish father, and was married to a painter, who wished to learn her father's secrets.