Edouard Manet creates a scandal in the 19th century art world with his paintings Le déjeuner sur l'herbe and Olympia. In each of them, the naked model is Victorine Meurent. Critics ridicule the works, dismissing Meurent as a common prostitute. But, in a world utterly dominated by men, she harbours a secret ambition to become an artist. She works in bars and teaches herself to paint. Throughout her sexual encounters with men and women, she retains her ruthless obsession with her ambition. The aristocratic Manet and the working class Meurent share a passion for art and a longing for success.

The author creates the characters and the atmosphere of 1860s Paris with a compelling simplicity that renders them authentic. Meurent’s bitter struggle to emerge from her background contrasts sharply with the esoteric exchanges between Manet and his friend Baudelaire on the nature of modernism. At the core of the novel lies the mystery of the creation of the painting that defined the transition into modern art.