'I Am You' fictionalizes the story of a Dutch Golden Age painter and her maid

Summary

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NPR's Book of the Day – Episode Summary

Episode: "I Am You" fictionalizes the story of a Dutch Golden Age painter and her maid
Date: October 16, 2025
Host: Linda Holmes
Guest: Victoria Redel (author)
Main Theme:
A conversation with Victoria Redel about her historical novel I Am You, which reimagines the lives of 17th-century Dutch painter Maria van Oosterwijk and her assistant/governess Goethe (Goetje) Peters, exploring their work, relationship, and the blend of fact and fiction in telling women’s stories from history.

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on Victoria Redel's novel I Am You, which takes sparse historical facts about two women—Maria van Oosterwijk and Goethe Peters—in 17th-century Amsterdam, and spins them into a lush, imaginative narrative. Redel and the host discuss the challenges of balancing historical faithfulness with storytelling, the physical realities and gendered dynamics of the Dutch Golden Age art world, and the power, intimacy, and rivalry in the women’s relationship.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the Story & Historical Sparseness

• Redel’s Inspiration:
  • A passing mention in Russell Shorto's Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City sparked her interest.

    “I was heading to Amsterdam, and there was a line that said… little is known of the painter Maria von Oosterwijk. But it went on to say she was renowned in her day… And I stumbled upon the other piece of information… that she had a servant who became her paint preparer and then an assistant in her workshop…” — Victoria Redel [03:03]

• What’s Known & Imagined:
  • Both women lived together for years; neither married, and Goethe progressed from servant to painter.
  • Redel fills in the emotional and creative gaps: “I thought that life, whatever happened between those two women, neither married, which was truly unusual for a woman painter in that time period. They lived together. That’s intriguing to me.” (Victoria Redel [03:44])

2. Crafting Relationship and Intimacy

• Developing the Relationship:
  • Redel’s storytelling lets the intimacy “develop between them in complicated ways… brings them closer and closer into what eventually also becomes a complex envy producing rivalrous, devoted love.” (Victoria Redel [03:59])
• Atmosphere and Sensuality:
  • The novel evokes a tactile, sensory world:

    “This is the Dutch Golden Age ... everything wonderful came through our port ... And Goethe watches as Maria, in a shaft of sunlight, rolls an egg, breaks it, pulls the runny yolk like taffy. Beautiful, says Maria. And sensual, I thought.” — Robin Young [04:27]

3. The World of 17th-Century Painting

• Making Paint and the Physical World:
  • Redel describes a hands-on approach to painting—making paint from scratch with “poppy seeds and honey,” and drawing beauty from transformation and decay.

    “To love color is to love decay... The painter’s palette is a ruthless art. I delighted in breaking one thing down, and then days or weeks later, my nose to a jar, breathing for the exact fetid shift, rot and wane. Beauty is transformation. Often a messy one at that.” — Victoria Redel (reading from novel, as Goethe) [06:01]

• Restrictions on Women Artists:
  • The episode notes that women like Maria were restricted to still lifes, often as vanitas (symbol-laden compositions commissioned by merchants):

    “They weren’t allowed in the painter’s guild … They made these still lifes of flowers and also large tables... They were usually painted for merchants.” — Victoria Redel [07:22]

4. Fictionalizing the Personal: Lovers and Power

• Navigating the Historical Record:
  • Some speculate on Goethe’s role: did she contribute to Maria’s artwork? Were they lovers? While museums phrase it as “records confirm [Maria] remained single and was primarily devoted to her career,” Redel pushes back:

    “As if that’s mutually exclusive, right?” — Victoria Redel [08:39]

• Why Write Them as Lovers?:
  • Redel felt it was plausible and didn’t hesitate:

    “It seemed to me plausible that they were lovers. And I went there.” — Victoria Redel [08:45]

• Queerness in Context:
  • Context of secrecy: “In the Dutch Golden Age, homosexuality was forbidden. It was punishable by being sent to prison. You could be killed for it. That's never stopped women from loving women. It's never stopped men from loving men.” — Victoria Redel [09:10]

5. Ambition, Rivalry, and Artistic Creation

• Shared Studio, Intertwined Ambitions:
  • Goethe's devotion and Maria's ambition sometimes come to odds:

    "Her primary devotion is her belief in Maria’s greatness as a painter. But her own sensibility as an artist, her own ambition, knocks up against Maria’s ambition. And I wanted to think about and allow women to have a huge range of ambition... along with ... unkindness, ... secrecy." — Victoria Redel [09:35]

• Painting as Emotional Expression:
  • The act of painting stands in for emotional complexity:

    “It might as well have been a portrait of all the love and grief, the knowing and confusion. I painted all the apologies we owed one another, as any two who have lived side by side owe...”— Robin Young quoting Goethe’s narration [10:42]

6. Legacy and Rediscovery

• Recognition at Last:
  • For the first time, Maria van Oosterwijk’s painting is now exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, a fact Redel finds significant:

    “For the first time in Amsterdam there’s a painting by Maria van Oosterwijk. And that seems wonderful and important and worth celebrating.” — Victoria Redel [11:48]

7. What Redel Hopes Readers Take Away

• Redel’s wish:

  “The hope that these two women, who were not always easy women, are given the same kind of opportunity and aliveness that we afford to ruthless male painters, but also that they’re given the complications in their relationships of any two people who have a long life together.” — Victoria Redel [11:20]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the sensuality and labor of art:

  “To love color is to love decay... The painter's palette is a ruthless art. I delighted in breaking one thing down, and then... breathing for the exact fetid shift, rot and wane. Beauty is transformation. Often a messy one at that.”
  — Victoria Redel (reading as Goethe) [06:01]

• On filling historical silences:

  “I thought it was really... plausible that they were lovers. And I went there.”
  — Victoria Redel [08:45]

• On ambition and complexity for women artists:

  “I wanted to think about and allow women to have a huge range of ambition, the perils that come along with that, the unkindness that comes along with that... secrecy.”
  — Victoria Redel [09:35]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:02 | Introduction and overview of Maria van Oosterwijk and Goethe Peters | | 03:03 | Redel recounts her inspiration and the “unknown woman artist” trope | | 04:27 | Host highlights the novel’s sensual, physical world | | 06:01 | Redel reads a vivid paint-mixing passage from her novel | | 07:22 | Historical context: women’s roles and limitations in art | | 08:39 | Discussion of rumors/speculation about their relationship/labor | | 09:10 | Historical peril/possibility of queerness in 17th century | | 10:42 | Painting as emotional storytelling and relationship metaphor | | 11:20 | Redel’s hope for her readers | | 11:48 | Recognition of Maria van Oosterwijk’s painting in Rijksmuseum | | 12:05 | Closing and thank you |

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Summary in the Tone of the Episode

This episode of NPR’s Book of the Day is both an excavation and a celebration: it gives voice to two women whose lives and work history nearly erased and lets Victoria Redel imagine what might have been—the intense, messy, sensual lives lived behind the still lifes. Anchored by rich, poetic language and a refusal to settle for simplistic answers, the conversation honors the women’s artistry and audacity, and the transformative, sometimes fraught intimacy that defines their story. As Redel puts it: “Beauty is transformation. Often a messy one at that.” I Am You makes vivid what history glosses over, asking listeners and readers to embrace complexity—both in art and in life.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome. I'm Linda holmes. This is NPR's book of the Day. It can be hard to know how much faithfulness to the literal truth a writer owes to historical figures from hundreds of years ago. Dutch Golden Age painter Maria van Oostervik and her assistant Goethe Peters were both real Women in 17th century Amsterdam and they really lived together for a long time, Goethe having started out as Maria's maid. The new historical novel I Am you by Victoria Redel fictionalizes their story, exploring both their personal relationship and the way they worked together. On NPR's Here and Now, Red Al told Robin Young about expanding on what we know about Oostervik and Peters. She says that to her it was believable that the two were lovers and that perhaps Goethe even took over some of the painting as Maria's health declined. This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices like full service, wealth management and advice when you need it. You can also invest on your own and trade on thinkorswim. Visit schwab.com to learn more.

[B]

This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com Ts and Cs apply.

[C]

Want to hear a great story? It's about 17th century Dutch artist Maria van Oosterwijk. Okay, stay with me. As a young girl, Maria would sketch the family servant Peter, but soon discovered Peter was actually a girl named Goethe. Her family disguised her so she could work. Then in the 1660s, Maria took Goethe, seven years younger, from Delft to Amsterdam as her own maid as she set off on a seemingly impossible quest to join the ranks of Dutch artists of her day. Rembrandt, Vermeer. Maria did achieve worldwide fame, but she was a woman and she was never allowed to join their all male guild. That is all true. But did Maria and Goethe become lovers? It's true that Goethe the servant miraculously became a famous painter herself. But did she actually paint for Maria, first guiding her trembling hand as Maria succumbed to tremors, then doing the paintings herself, signing Maria's name. Did she say to Maria, I am you? That's the title of a new, highly fictionalized and gorgeously descriptive novel about Maria van Oesterwick and the real life Goetje Peters. Vinces author Victoria Redel is here. Victoria, congratulations. And I didn't just love this book because Sarah Jessica Parker told me to.

[D]

Well, thank you for that, Robin.

[C]

Yeah. And you write in an author's note right at the outset that it was a line in the great book from Russell Shorto, amsterdam, Amsterdam, that launched this wild ride you've written. What was that line? Where did it take you?

[D]

I was heading to Amsterdam, and there was a line that said something kind of along the lines of little is known of the painter Maria von Oosterwick. But it went on to say she was renowned in her day. Her work was sold all over Europe. And I thought, oh, let me just check out who this is, another forgotten woman artist. And I stumbled upon the other piece of information that I found even more intriguing, which was that she had a servant who became her paint preparer and then an assistant in her workshop and then began to establish herself as a painter in her own right. And I thought that that life, whatever happened between those two women, neither married, which was truly unusual for a woman painter in that time period. They lived together. That's intriguing to me. And I thought, let me pursue that.

[C]

Yeah. And you created the story of women who fell in love.

[D]

Well, I didn't know that they were going to go there from the beginning. It's one of the pleasures in writing that you set characters in motion and their intimacy, which develops between them in complicated ways because there's a huge power dynamic, brings them closer and closer into what eventually also becomes a complex envy producing rivalrous, devoted love.

[C]

Yeah. Well, someone who's read this book might say, how could they not fall in love? Because what a sensual, earthy world you bring us into. Not just the love between the women. We'll get to that. But, you know, this is the Dutch Golden Age. As Goethe, she's our narrator, says, everything wonderful came through our port, where they lived in Delft when they were young. And Goethe watches as Maria, in a shaft of sunlight, rolls an egg, breaks it, pulls the runny yolk like taffy. Beautiful, says Maria. And sensual, I thought. Then a teenage Maria sketches Goethe, or Peter, as she's known. Then blood dripping as she kills a rabbit for dinner while singing to it. Talk about this. Every single page. Tangible world.

[D]

Well, everything. Paint, you know, you weren't going into a paint store and buying a tube of Winsor Newton. Paint was made by the. And the more I started understanding the Dutch Golden Age, the more I understood how richly physical a world it was. There's the slaughtering of animals, there was the raising of animals. There was the care that you took in making butter every day.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Do you have your book there with you, I do. Oh, let's go to page 36. Because it. Is that exactly what you're talking about, painting. And, you know, Goethe goes out and buys all the elements that are needed, takes it very seriously. And here Goethe is mixing the paints. Mortar and pestle, you know, poppy seeds and honey. Could you. Do you mind reading that paragraph?

[D]

To love color is to love decay. The deep black of burnt willow, the soft black of gall ink. When in spring, the wasp punctures nuts to lay her precious eggs, and the oak tries to heal itself over its wounds. To love red is to love the husk of bugs, bone of animal, bone of insect, of tree, bone of men, dirt and soot, blood and piss, burnt earth, grind great pulverized mull. The painter's palette is a ruthless art. I delighted in breaking one thing down, and then days or weeks later, my nose to a jar, breathing for the exact fetid shift, rot and wane. Beauty is transformation. Often a messy one at that. All the mucus, the detritus of living, squirt of the cuttlefish captured for sepia. The ripe purple berries, macerated and festering in a shut vessel, become a surprise. Not purple, but a soft green scumbled along a blond stalk of cattail.

[C]

Yeah, okay, that's just mixing paint. Talk about what women of the time did with the paint. Because Maria wasn't the only famous female artist. Rachel Reusch is being shown right now at the Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. But they were restricted to still lifes, except the still lifes weren't pretty little vases of flowers.

[D]

So they weren't allowed in the painter's guild. That was the first thing they made, these still lives of flowers and also large tables. And they were called vanitas. They were usually painted for merchants. There was an element of brag, like, look at all my beautiful grapes and my table of cheeses.

[C]

And I'm looking at one of Maria's paintings. There's a skull.

[D]

I think they're meant to be a nod to religion.

[C]

We come to the relationship between the women. Peter goes from Peter to Goethe to painter in her own right. And in your telling, Maria's lover, the language there is breathtaking, you know, breath on neck. And you also say that Goethe, when Maria was failing, would actually do her paintings for her. Did you hesitate at all? Well, I'm going to read you how. The Amsterdam Museum. It's kind of funny. It kind of makes you laugh. The Amsterdam Museum, they say it's not known if Goethe painted any of Maria's work. And then some. Modern discussions have speculated about the nature of their relationship. But historical records confirm that van Oesterwijk remained single and was primarily devoted to her career. As if.

[D]

As if that's mutually exclusive, Right.

[C]

So did you hesitate at all to fill in that void?

[D]

Okay, I didn't hesitate. I thought it was really. It seemed to me plausible that they were lovers. And I went there.

[C]

Well, you did. And I'm wondering, you had to research the Dutch Golden Age. Did you have to? I mean, you were married to a man that also isn't, you know, exclusive of other knowledge. But did you research love between two women?

[A]

Sure.

[D]

In the Dutch Golden Age, homosexuality was forbidden. It was punishable by being sent to prison. You could be killed for it. That's never stopped women from loving women. It's never stopped men from loving men.

[C]

It ends up ultimately, as you alluded to, being a power struggle as Goethe becomes famous as Maria parades her as.

[D]

Her creation, as we see in many studios, even contemporary art studios, where there are apprentices who do much of the work. At his height, Rembrandt had many, many young boys who worked in his studio and studied with him and mixed his paint and probably painted the backgrounds. And often the apprentices were painting the clothing. So I extended that to two women painters. And then I added in the possibility of a declining health. Goethe is so devoted to Maria. I mean, her primary devotion is her belief in Maria's greatness as a painter. But her own sensibility as an artist, her own ambition, knocks up against Maria's ambition. And I wanted to think about and allow women to have a huge range of ambition, the perils that come along with that, the unkindness that comes along with that. In the case of Maria's behaviors, often with Goethe, and the secrecy.

[C]

You are also a noted poet, and every page carries that. There's a moment where painting actually becomes relationship. For Goethe, she's working on a still life and Maria is failing. And Goethe says, my brush was fast and rough. And though it was an arrangement of flowers set on a table by a window opening on a watery landscape, it might as well have been a portrait of all the love and grief, the knowing and confusion I painted, all the apologies we owed one another, as any two who have lived side by side owe just Victoria. I mean, what did you want to leave the reader with?

[D]

The hope that these two women, who were not always easy women, are given the same kind of opportunity and aliveness that we afford to ruthless male painters, but also that they're given the complications in their relationships of any two people who have a long life together.

[C]

Yeah, you're shining a light on them.

[D]

Yep. For the first time, the Rijksmuseum, it has a painting of her by another painter. But for the first time in Amsterdam there's a painting by Maria van Oosterwijk. And that seems wonderful and important and worth celebrating.

[C]

Well, no kidding. Victoria Redel. Her new book is I Am A Fictionalized Story of the Real Life Painters Maria von Uservik and Goethe Peters Vintges. Thank you so much.

[D]

Thank you so much, Robin.

[B]

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