Albert Nikolaevich Benois was an academic, a master of watercolor painting, a man of high culture for whom art was above all else. He left no memoirs, but the film recreates the artist's life through his fleeting impressions, scattered in letters and watercolors. The film was shot in St. Petersburg, where the protagonist was born and lived until the age of 72, and in France, where he died in 1936.
