The career of the once successful classical portraitist, Kingdom Swann, has hit bad times. When a leading gallery rejects his work, he seems at the point of giving up. It is only the support of his housekeeper, Violet Askey, that keeps him going and it is she who encourages him to switch to photography. Soon Swann has developed a healthy (and respectable) business with portraits of naked women in classical and exotic settings. However, the nature of Swann's new work is open to misinterpretation ...