With Paris and the rest of the world on the eve of WWI, Henri Matisse is about to embark on one of his most memorable adventures, one that begins with the appearance of a Matisse impostor whose aptitude for larceny includes blackmail. The prospect for Matisse to ever finish a painting is further compromised by a beautiful pickpocket who takes a bath in Matisse's home on quai St. Michel and who becomes both a savior and a source of further turmoil in a saga that continues in Pontoise after the war.