GRIGOR SIDOROV is a young Russian fine artist who, after perestroika, works for the State in the restoration of Russia's art and architectural treasures. Grigor deludes himself that he alone has inherited the burden of the loss of the family's dignity, the blurring of their lineage back to the time of Tzar Peter the Great, and the dispossession of their wealth by the Bolsheviks. In the Peterhof Palace in St Petersburg, the 18th C paintings by a famous Italian artist, Pietro Rotari, provide a compelling link with his family's claims of their noble descendancy. In Grigor's obsession to own the...