Plot

Harry Donovan is an art forger who paints a fake Rembrandt picture for $500,000. Marieke, the woman he meets in Paris and gets into bed with, turns out to be the art expert whom Harry's clients are using to check the counterfeit picture he painted.

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. Donovan sells his fakes to galleries for 4000, who sell it to their clients for $90,000.

Frustrated by the cancellation of an exhibition of his paintings, Harry accepts a job forging a long-lost Rembrandt for $500,000 (with a $50,000 advance) from three art dealer clients-Alistair Davies (Thomas Lockyer), Ian Hill (Simon Chandler), and Agachi (Togo Igawa)-against the wishes of his artist father Milton (Rod Steiger) who wants his son to give up forgery and concentrate on his own work.

Due to modern detection techniques, it is almost impossible to fake a master as renowned as a Rembrandt.

Despite his father's wishes, Harry takes the job and travels to Amsterdam to study Rembrandt. Across museums and art galleries he studies the style of Rembrandt. Harry is looking for a Rembrandt being restored so he can get his hands on the composition of the paints and the canvas used. Harry decides to fake a painting that was lost to the times and the experts were expecting to rediscover in due course of time.

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. The dimensions of the painting are 92 X 71 cm. A leading Dutch scholar recorded the painting before it left Holland by sea. Donovan is now looking for a face, but none of the samples he finds in Europe are fit enough to be Rembrandt's best work.

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 written by Marieke. Harry also says that he is studying portraits of Dutch masters. Harry goes to study a Rembrandt at the museum and learns that it has been removed for restoration. Harry tries to enter the restoration level but is stopped. Turns out Marieke works at the museum and with her unwitting help, he gains access to an actual Rembrandt being restored at the Louvre from which he obtains scrapings of the original varnish. Soon Harry and Marieke become involved romantically. In 1931 there were 800 supposed Rembrandts, but experts have systematically exposed the fakes, and the count is now down to 241.

Harry travels back to Amsterdam, where he paints his "Rembrandt" in an attic studio using period materials and a photograph of his own father as a model. He buys an old painting from Rembrandt's period and takes the canvas to paint his work over it. He purchases paints made from original materials, fit for the period (for e.g. the blue paint is made from pure Azurite). Orders a chemical analysis on the paint he had scrapped from the Rembrandt and buys 20 grams of lead paint, which is over 160 years old. The white paint is made from lead oxide. Genuine badger hair made brushes.

Once the painting is complete, Donovan bakes it in an oven (225 degrees, 3 times) to give it texture. He then collects soot from candle burning under a glass panel and spreads the soot on the painting as in the time period soot from the Industrial revolution would be found on Rembrandt's works.

He then journeys to Spain where he shows his three clients his forged masterpiece. The dealers want Donovan to sign the painting, but Donovan is adamant that Rembrandt didn't sign half of his work and in this case, the better strategy is to let the experts say what the painting is, rather than telling it to them.

After they find a local farmer who is paid to claim to have "found" the painting, the three clients invite two art experts to examine the painting, and they "confirm" it to be a Rembrandt. They return to London with the painting for a final authentication by a group of experts, which includes Marieke, to Harry's surprise. Several experts agree it is genuine, but Marieke does not. Angered to learn that his clients plan to hold a public auction, Harry tries to take back his painting, is threatened at gunpoint, and defends himself. After Harry makes his escape with the painting, Davies shoots and kills Agachi, and then frames Harry for the murder and the theft of the painting.

After eluding arrest, Harry finds Marieke, handcuffs her to his wrist, and together they escape on the Orient Express. Forced to flee the train by the pursuing police, they make their way through the English countryside, eventually splitting up before Harry is finally arrested while attempting to destroy his forgery at Mentmore Towers.

During his trial Harry tries to prove his innocence by duplicating the painting in open court to show that the painting is fake. His feelings, however, over his father's recent death and his wish for him to give up forgery prevent him from completing the painting. "Only Rembrandt can paint a Rembrandt," he concludes. Harry is saved when Hill, fearing his partner's homicidal intentions, testifies that Davies was actually the one who murdered Agachi. An enraged Davies is put in contempt and Harry is cleared of all charges.

After his release, Harry discovers that Hill plans to auction the painting himself and reap all the financial benefits. Having anticipated such an outcome, Harry had written a letter to the farmer in Spain notifying him of the deception. Spanish law allows the government first right of purchase from the discoverer of all treasures found on Spanish soil. The painting ends up in the Museo Del Prado and the $55,000,000 that the painting was sold for end up in Spain. Of this money two thirds are taken by the Spanish government, half of the remaining sum is taken by the Church, and what is left is given to the farmer. In gratitude, the farmer invites Harry to Spain where he gives the artist half of the money-$5 million. Harry then travels back to Paris to meet Marieke. He gives her an original portrait that he painted of her in his own style. After signing the painting, the couple kiss and embrace on the romantic banks of the Seine.