Talented New York artist Harry Donovan (Jason Patric) is an expert forger of famous artists' paintings but is struggling to become a legitimate artist in his own right. Until now, he has avoided detection by forging third and fourth tier masters, but that is about to change. Frustrated by the cancellation of an exhibition of his paintings, Harry accepts a job forging a long-lost Rembrandt for $500,000 from three art dealer clients-Alistair Davies (Thomas Lockyer), Ian Hill (Simon Chandler), and Agachi (Togo Igawa)-against the wishes of his artist father (Rod Steiger) who wants his son to give up forgery and concentrate on his own work.Despite his father's wishes, Harry takes the job and travels to Amsterdam to study Rembrandt. He decides to forge a never-discovered portrait of the master's blind father lost supposedly off the coast of Spain over 350 years ago. Harry continues his research in Paris, where he meets a beautiful Rembrandt scholar, Professor Marieke van den Broeck (Irene Jacob), who tells him she is a "student". Harry does not know that one of his main source books was