I knew right away that I was going to like Hannah Rothschild’s first novel, THE IMPROBABILITY OF LOVE. Its opening chapter reminds me a great deal of the style of another chronicler of the (fictional) rich and famous, Penny Vincenzi. Like Vincenzi, Rothschild brings together a wealthy and eccentric cast of characters, introducing each in quick succession and offering just a tantalizing glimpse into his or her motivations and desires.

The scene at the start of the book is an auction for a long-lost and recently rediscovered painting by the 18th-century French master Antoine Watteau. Called The Improbability of Love, this (fictional) painting has had a long and convoluted provenance, playing a part in some of the great romances of the last several centuries, as well as a scandal or two. Each of the players we’re introduced to has his or her own reason for wanting to possess the painting --- and the auctioneer has his own motivation for wanting it to fetch a record price, as everyone is sure it will.

"Rothschild...is perhaps uniquely qualified to paint this kind of portrait --- one that is simultaneously funny and satirical yet respectful of the power of art to transcend all the backstabbing and betrayals that its potential possession might engender."

But just as the bidding is about to get underway, we are taken back in time just a few months earlier, to a woman who has no skin in this game, to put it mildly. Annie McDee has zero interest in or knowledge about art; her great passion is cooking. Still nursing a broken heart after the recent breakup of a long relationship, she combs a neighborhood junk shop near her new London flat to find a gift for the guy she reluctantly has begun seeing. They met at an art museum, so perhaps this dirty but unmistakably alluring painting will interest him --- and she manages to cut quite a deal with the junk shop owner.

Soon Annie’s romantic aspirations are dashed once again, but she becomes increasingly captivated by her new painting, which is met alternately with interest and skepticism by the art experts she shows it to. Coincidentally, Annie’s new catering job brings her in close contact with Memling Winkleman and his daughter, Rebecca, two of the world’s most important art dealers. Rebecca begins to suspect that Annie might have a painting that has a long and complicated history with her family --- a history that is more tortuous than even Rebecca herself might initially suspect.

As the mystery deepens, the story is told from multiple perspectives, including not only Annie’s but also her eventual love interest, her mother, and (in a gimmick that is at times more successful than others) the painting itself. We also come to know a vast cast of characters from the painting’s past, present and future, as well as members and hangers-on of London’s art scene. Some are truly passionate about the work they do; others are merely in it for glamour or fortune. Rothschild shifts back and forth between their points of view, sometimes so quickly as to be disorienting. Overall, though, the impression is one of being given a backstage pass into a rarefied world most of us will never be privy to.

Rothschild, whose notable family has its own complicated history (part of which she has written about in a biography of one of her great-aunts) and who serves on the board of the National Gallery in London as well as other arts organizations, is perhaps uniquely qualified to paint this kind of portrait --- one that is simultaneously funny and satirical yet respectful of the power of art to transcend all the backstabbing and betrayals that its potential possession might engender.