In April 1982, when she is 17 years old, Victoria’s father takes her to London’s National Gallery. The reason for the visit is two-fold: one to say goodbye to her before he sets off for the Falklands War and another to show her his favourite painting, which a distant relation of theirs once owned. He buys two postcards of The Arnolfini Marriage to remind them of each other while he is away. He is killed in a helicopter crash on May 22^nd.

Victoria visits the portrait every year on the anniversary of her father’s death. On one visit years later she meets Christopher Marlowe, an art historian researching a book about van Eyck’s famously enigmatic work.

Victoria’s father left some crucial evidence about the origins of the painting, which she tells Christopher about. Together they begin an investigation that not only leads to the unravelling of one of art’s most famous mysteries but also to them falling in love.

But Victoria is stuck in an unhappy marriage to William, an artist, with whom she has two young sons. She has to chose between the love of her life or her children.