1854, in a grand house built to offer a safe home for a bruised and battered family two gentleman, enjoy an informal dinner party. Lucas Bartock Whitby doesn’t get many visitors but Richard Bentley is enjoyable company as they talk of art, politics and gossip, drinking very acceptable red wine.
It is then Bentley asks Lucas to take on a commission, to paint a subject, Lucas would never have conceived of before. Lucas readily accepts.
Originally from Hungary, Lucas is mindful of his… should we say cultural heritage. Living with his lively and outgoing niece, Caroline, they are a depleted family. Depleted for many reasons that Victorian England would find difficult to understand.
Caroline is a woman ahead of her time but very much tied to her ancestral past and a family name both cherished and hidden. But Lucas is a complex person, holding on to his family’s heritage with a sense of selfless duty, he also has ambitions, hopes and dreams,
A gothic tale of family, culture, blood and paint, and a very strong obsession with the Pre-Raphaelites.