The plot is about the paintstaking process researches go through to find a lost painting and the pace of this book is just as painfully slow. I finished it, but had to force myself to just keep reading. It reads like a novel, but it is a true story of researchers looking for a lost painting, the search requires, careful attention to detail, hours posting through the dead scrolls of family archives, if this sounds exciting to you, then go for it....don't be fooled by the back of the jacket or the reviews, you really don't learn anything about the artist, other than the fact his life wasn't that exciting, the lives of his researchers aren't that exciting.