What book is this?

[CassandraBarrett]

I'm trying to remember this book
The protagonist is a female artist in the 17th/18th century.
I think she painted the pictures but her brother took the credit as it would have been unseemly for a woman to be a painter.
Sir Joshua Reynolds just popped into my head, perhaps he was a character.
The denouement involved the protagonist revealing herself to be the artist of a particular work by attacking the picture and scraping off the paint to reveal her signature below.

I listened to it as an audiobook 10 years ago so it's at least that old.

Many thanks

Sounds a bit like The Muse by Jessie Burton. Not all of the details match though.

Thank you, but it's not The Muse.

I've looked up Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was active in the late 1700s so I think that's the time period of this book.
It only had one time line, no modern person discovering anything in an attic!

I recall it also being well written, so literary fiction as opposed to so called "chick lit" (which if often overlooked and derided!)

Could it be The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt?

It's 14 hrs 45 according to Amazon

I found it ( posted in AIBU too)
It's "The Fraud" by Barbara Ewing.
Thank you for the suggestions