I liked this book. It's an imagined history of a 15th Century oil painting on a wood panel brought to a Melbourne art conservator. Claire Thomas weaves art history, art appreciation and 19th Century travel literature into a novel of love and loss. I picked the novel up because I just love descriptions of colour and art pigments. So the novel is reminiscent of Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring and in it's structure of Geraldine Brook's People of the Book. It is lighter, more detached, but cleverly structured. Look forward to more writing from this author. Classic Orange Prize longlister material. ( )