Pieter Blaeu, a young publisher from a family of famous cartographers, meets the aged, destitute painter, Rembrandt van Rijn, on a tour of artists studios in 1667, and is quickly enticed into his theatre of life through a strange mixture of admiration and repulsion. Meanwhile, Rembrandt is keeping a private journal, a dog-eared black tablet where he records everything from his rules of art and life to his dramas and recipes