Opening
Emsley Wilson and Johanna Bonger hit turning points that redefine their futures. Emsley lands a financial lifeline and a circle of allies—plus a spark with Bram Dekker—while Johanna rejects defeat to build the strategy that will secure Vincent van Gogh’s legacy. Both women step from grief into purpose.
What Happens
Chapter 21: A Jackpot in the Business
Emsley Wilson meets Sergei Prokhorov, an antiques expert and cousin to Bram Dekker, to assess the treasures in Violet Velar’s basement. He moves briskly through the pieces—spotting a Charles X wardrobe worth up to fifteen thousand—before stopping cold at the carousel. He identifies it as an early 1920s Allan Herschell, its horses carved by master craftsman Daniel Muller, and calls it a “jackpot,” valuing it in the mid–six figures.
As Emsley relaxes in Sergei’s easy humor, she confides her confusion about Bram’s wedding ring and assumes he is married. Sergei gently corrects her: Bram’s wife died two years ago. He shares that Bram’s family has worried he hasn’t moved on—until, after meeting Emsley, the ring quietly disappears. The revelation reframes everything for Emsley: her assumptions, her guardedness, and Bram’s steady attention. Stunned but buoyed, she heads back to work with new clarity.
Chapter 22: Et tu, Brute?
In February 1891 Paris, Johanna Bonger mourns Theo van Gogh as her brother Andries 'Dries' Bonger arrives with brisk advice. He pushes her to leave Paris, return to Amsterdam, and abandon the “clutter” of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings. His solution is brutal: burn them. To Dries, the canvases are worthless; to Johanna, they are Theo’s faith made visible.
Johanna refuses to betray that faith. She declares that preserving Vincent’s work is now her purpose, vowing to continue Theo’s mission despite poverty and isolation. Dries pays her overdue rent but insists she go home, remarry, and conform. Johanna answers that she would “go mad” in that life—and, even alone, chooses a path of resistance, conviction, and work.
Chapter 23: An Impromptu Investors’ Meeting
Fresh from Sergei’s news, Emsley calls Bram to pitch her plan for Ludington’s. That evening Bram arrives with his grandfather and Sergei; the gathering organically grows to include Strena and one of her models, Monique, who wants to learn how to pitch. During introductions, Strena casually reveals she speaks Dutch—an unexpected solution to translating Johanna’s diary. Emsley, nervous but prepared, lays out a New York expansion for the auction house.
Trey barges in with a smug buyout offer, assuming Emsley has failed to raise funds. The room rallies instead: Bram, his grandfather, Sergei, and Strena pledge $600,000 on the spot. Emsley counters with a bold split—Trey takes Los Angeles and the cash; she takes the client list and launches Ludington’s New York. Trey scoffs but agrees to consider it. After he leaves, Sergei reframes Violet’s thousands of art flyers as an asset they can sell to close the funding gap.
Chapter 24: The Harbor
By August 1891, Johanna has left Paris for Bussum in the Netherlands and opened the Villa Helma boardinghouse to support herself and her infant son, Wil. She reads Vincent’s letters to Theo by lamplight, comforted and haunted by the intimacy of his voice. Confiding in her friend Anna, Johanna admits her deepest fear: that Vincent killed himself believing he burdened Theo’s new family, especially after they named their baby for him. The guilt becomes a crucible.
An idea crystallizes. Inspired by a small published selection of Vincent’s letters, Johanna commits to organizing, editing, and publishing the entire correspondence—over 700 letters—so readers can meet the man behind the canvases. Rebuffs arrive immediately: Goupil & Cie formally rejects Vincent’s work; a letter from Matisse reports a Van Gogh portrait “used to patch a hole in a chicken coop.” Undeterred, Johanna pivots to the Netherlands and targets influential artists in The Hague as her first allies.
Chapter 25: A Coffee Date
The investor gathering winds down with Russian dishes and warmth. When the others leave, Bram lingers to help Emsley clean up. She apologizes for her distance and explains the wedding-ring misunderstanding. He tells her about his wife, Tessa, who died from a blood clot two years earlier—the loss that kept him suspended between past and future.
Bram speaks plainly: he has a “nonprofessional interest” in Emsley and asks her for coffee—now. He leads her to the basement, powers up the antique carousel, and switches off the lights. In the dark chariot, lit only by jeweled bulbs, time softens and the world falls away. As the carousel turns, Bram leans in, and the chapter ends on the edge of a kiss.
Character Development
Across these chapters, grief becomes action. Emsley converts fear into strategy and community. Johanna converts solitude into purpose. Their choices create momentum that reshapes the people around them.
- Emsley Wilson: Steps into her authority—pitches confidently, counters Trey with a strategic split, and embraces both a New York vision and the possibility of love.
- Johanna Bonger: Claims her mission—to preserve Vincent’s art and publish his letters—and rejects the narrow life prescribed by family and society.
- Bram Dekker: Moves from mourning to openness, removes his ring, and declares clear, respectful interest in Emsley.
- Trey: Reveals himself as condescending and transactional, the foil to Emsley’s collaborative model and Bram’s support.
- Andries “Dries” Bonger: Embodies pragmatic cynicism; his push to destroy the paintings sharpens Johanna’s resolve.
Themes & Symbols
These chapters foreground Female Empowerment and Perseverance. When men with power—Trey and Dries—dismiss Emsley’s and Johanna’s visions, both women refuse containment. Emsley builds a coalition and reimagines a business on her terms; Johanna defies convention to steward an artistic legacy. Their agency is communal, strategic, and sustained.
Legacy, Art, and Preservation threads through every choice. Johanna recognizes that Vincent’s paintings and letters are inseparable—that to preserve the art, the world must encounter the man. Emsley likewise reframes Violet’s ephemera as cultural assets, not clutter. Both arcs align with Finding One’s Purpose and Identity: purpose emerges not from ease but from principled resistance, grief transmuted into work. In Johanna’s fear for Vincent and devotion to Theo, we also see Family, Love, and Sacrifice, where loyalty demands costly, visible action.
Symbols concentrate meaning:
- The Carousel: Hidden value turned lifeline, then transformed into a locus of wonder and renewal—a literal machine for second chances.
- Vincent’s Letters: A map to the artist’s interior life and the instrument by which Johanna will teach the world to see.
- The Chicken Coop: A stark emblem of cultural blindness, measuring the cliff Johanna must scale.
Key Quotes
“Jackpot.”
- Sergei’s verdict revalues the carousel and Emsley’s future at once. It converts a dusty burden into liquid possibility and catalyzes the coalition that follows.
“Burn them.”
- Dries’s command exposes the gulf between pragmatic convenience and visionary stewardship. The cruelty galvanizes Johanna’s purpose and defines her as the counterforce to indifference.
She would “go mad.”
- Johanna’s refusal to accept a narrow, prescribed life is more than emotion; it’s a manifesto. Sanity, for her, requires meaningful work and fidelity to Theo’s belief in Vincent.
“Nonprofessional interest.”
- Bram’s careful phrase signals respect and vulnerability. It marks his step out of mourning and gives Emsley permission to choose intimacy alongside ambition.
A Van Gogh portrait “used to patch a hole in a chicken coop.”
- This image compresses historical irony and outrage. It clarifies the scale of Johanna’s task: to shift a culture that cannot yet recognize genius.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters pivot both timelines from survival to strategy. Emsley secures capital, claims creative control, and kindles a romance that promises emotional steadiness alongside professional daring. Johanna transforms grief into a concrete plan—publishing the letters—that will educate a skeptical public and, ultimately, alter art history. The parallel arcs reinforce the book’s core argument: legacies are not discovered; they are made by determined people who refuse to accept the world’s first answer.