Her story, Restoration Woman depicted a man healing from the death of his wife and thanks to seeing a portrait of a young lady at the National Gallery, he moves out of his melancholic state.  However, his need to want to touch her put me off).  Before that, he looks (with disdain) at a series of portraits dated around 1660 to 1690.  Seriously, the way he talks about the women in the paintings left me not liking him.  Going back to this fictional gallery showing, the paintings apparently depict women as archetypes of a Classical past.  However, I think Buchan needed to do more research because this trend did not happen until the 1700s.