A fable, a nightmare, a vision, a mystery -- superbly rich imaginative fiction at its best. New York, 1893, and society portrait painter Piero Piambo feels his artistic ambition waning, even while he immortalizes the city's nouveaux riches in oil paints. But then he receives a bizarre and lucrative commission, to paint the mysterious Mrs Charbuque. The catch is that he is not allowed to see her, and so Piambo sits before a screen as his sitter tells him of her life, dreams, and fears -- clues from which he must divine her visage. As he works, a series of murders plagues the city -- deaths that at first seem accidental. And, as Piambo's masterpiece takes shape, his relationship with Mrs Charbuque grows ever more tangled...while her deranged husband becomes hellbent on some inexplicable vengeance.