About this item
Annie McDee, alone after the disintegration of her long-term relationship and trapped in a dead-end job, is searching for a present for her unsuitable lover in a neglected second-hand shop. Within the jumble of junk and tack, a grimy painting catches her eye. Leaving the store with the picture after spending her meagre savings, she prepares an elaborate dinner for two, only to be stood up, the gift gathering dust on her mantelpiece. But every painting has a story - and if it could speak, what would it tell us? For Annie has stumbled across 'The Improbability of Love', a lost masterpiece by Antoine Watteau, one of the most influential French painters of the eighteenth century. Soon Annie is drawn unwillingly into the art world, and finds herself pursued by a host of interested parties that would do anything to possess her picture.
About the Author
Hannah Rothschild is the author of House of Trelawney; The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild; and The Improbability of Love which was shortlisted for the Bailley's prize for womens' fiction and won the PG Wodehouse, Everyman, Bollinger prize for best comic novel in 2016. Her feature length BBC/HBO documentaries have appeared at such festivals as Telluride and Tribeca. She's written for Vanity Fair, Vogue, The Independent, Elle, Bazaar, T and C, The Times, The Telegraph, the NYT and others. She's a vice president of the Hay Literary Festival, a former trustee of the Tate Gallery, and was the first woman chair of the National Gallery in London. In 2018 she was made a Commander of The British Empire for services to literature and philanthropy.
