1763. As candles flicker in the falling dusk along Pall Mall, Filipo di Vecellio, fêted portrait painter from Florence, and his beautiful wife Angelica entertain the cream of London's art world in their fashionable London home, with Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough among the guests, and William Hogarth a disapproving observer. Little is known of Filipo's past or his family - except in the shadows sits his sister, Francesca, who watches, and listens, and waits.