The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild

This was a delicious book and I learnt a few new words along the way. It tells the story of Annie, a thirty something wannabe chef living in London, who buys a painting from a junk store. The painting turns out to be a lost masterpiece called The Improbability of Love. There are four or five chapters written in the first person by the painting itself (which turns out to be a bit of a snob) that I particularly enjoyed.

The book explores the process of authenticating art; the world of the super rich art buyer; the selling, stealing and hiding of art during the first and second world wars; and the process of art restoration. The book will appeal to foodies as much as art lovers; Annie prepares magnificent banquets that she spends weeks researching and preparing.

There are many interesting characters in the book. Annie works for Rebecca Winkleman, who is a cold, smart, beautiful, 50 year old art dealer, still very much under the control of her father.  Annie's mother Evie is an alcoholic. Barty St George is an outrageous, Elton John style character, who advises the super rich on how to spend their money and gain entry to the best society. Vlad Antipovsky is an exiled Russian oligarch who Barty takes under his wing. No one in the book is happily married; hence the relationships reflect the title of the painting and the book.

The author tries to explain why great works of art sell for so much money. They are good investments; by owning a painting you become part of it's history, one of many owners that might have included kings, queens and popes; they are in limited supply. Using just a few brush strokes great artists are able to capture the human condition; artworks convey meaning and emotion to the viewer. At the same time, paintings are fragile and can easily be damaged.

There are a couple of great plot twists. I really thought I knew where the story was going, but the last hundred pages were not what I expected. I was quite cross with the author with fifty pages to go, but I eventually discovered that her expertise runs to storytelling and not just art!