The book is built around the relationships of leading artists and actors in London starting in the 1880s. The independent life of an unfinished portrait that is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, becomes the story as the people that create it fade from popular memory.
Sarah Bernhardt, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, Laurence Alma Tadema, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Bram Stoker, all play a part in the creation of the portrait and its' survival.
The interaction between the portraitist and the actor subject, the nature of the portrayal, the needs of the two artists create the first threat to the painting.