This collection of stories of widely varying character containing stories, commentary and reportage about artists and their art from classical times to the 20th century. Most of them are revealing, informative, scandalous, amusing or in some way significant. The book concentrates mainly on the period from the 15th to the 19th century and is entirely concerned with European art, apart from an appendix about Chinese art. The arrangement is chronological and by artists, so that individual anecdotes can be seen in relation to their more general background.