Young Kate Millet is the model for the painting John Singer Sargent is working on in her parents' garden. But when one of her father's friends arrives with his two daughters, Sargent decides to use them instead. Kate is devastated. Based on numerous letters and recollections from the period, Hugh Brewster's story describes Kate's disappointment, the painter’s difficulties through the long artistic process, Kate's reconciliation with him and how she is immortalized on canvas after all. It is illustrated with more than 35 of Sargent's paintings and sketches.