To Christina Olson, the entire world was her familys remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century.

In 1850s London, beautiful young aspiring artist Iris is asked to model for Pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, but a chance encounter with a curiosity collector leads to a dark obsession that may destroy her world forever.