Page "Brush with Fate" Paragraph 2

Richard is a new art teacher at a high school.

Cornelia Englebrecht ( played by Glenn Close ) is a history teacher who invites Richard to see a painting of a young girl at a table, which she believes to be a genuine Vermeer, where she tells him stories, which are portrayed as flashbacks about the people who owned the painting in the past.

All of the stories take place in Holland, and the flashbacks happen mostly before the one preceding it.

The first story, from the late 1800s, involved a romance and had flashbacks within flashbacks.

Another story took place in the early 1700s when a baby was abandoned during a flood after a dike break.

The painting accompanied the baby and was intended to be sold for the baby's expenses.