The Lost Mas­ter­piece is wrapped around an enig­mat­ic and pow­er­ful paint­ing, Par­ty on the Seine. Stolen by the Nazis. Believed to be destroyed for almost a cen­tu­ry. Pos­si­bly haunt­ed by the anguished spir­it of Impres­sion­ist painter Berthe Morisot. Sur­vivor of a flood, an earth­quake, and a fire when all the oth­er art­works around it were destroyed. What secrets does it hold? What pow­er? When Tama­ra Rubin inher­its the valu­able Par­ty on the Seine, cre­at­ed by the famous ances­tor she nev­er knew she had — Edouard Manet — she also inher­its a deep his­to­ry and mys­tery. As the paint­ing begins to meta­mor­phose into dark­er and more ter­ri­fy­ing ver­sions of itself, Tamara’s life is upend­ed. Who was her great-great-great-great-grand­moth­er Berthe Morisot? What wounds, rid­dles, and resent­ments plagued her, and what lengths will the spir­it of Berthe go in order to enact her revenge? The Lost Mas­ter­piece is a sto­ry of love, adul­tery, betray­al, long­ing, fam­i­ly secrets, and the birth of Impres­sion­ism. Set part­ly in Paris in the late 1800s, the nov­el explores the life of a female artist when it was com­plete­ly improp­er for a woman to paint seri­ous­ly. Shapiro brings Berthe’s world to life, as she traces her work through gen­er­a­tions of her descen­dants and intro­duces us to a painter as bril­liant and orig­i­nal as her male coun­ter­parts. Across 150 years of tri­umphs, strug­gles, pas­sions, ani­mosi­ties and malev­o­lence, Shapiro does what she always does so bril­liant­ly: she shows us how art can open up our sens­es and enlarge our world.