Jerónimo Díaz, a young anarchist painter, living in exile after the Spanish Civil War, is asked to copy the enigmatic El Bosco painting 'Jonas and the Ballerina', a work which appears and disappears and which Philip II tried to acquire in the 16th century. His task is interrupted by the German invasion and - like thousands of his compatriots - he ends up in a concentration camp. Over sixty years later, Javier Carreño  - a specialist in El Bosco's work - is appointed to organise an exhibition. But when he meets Jerónimo, what was initially a systematic, bureaucratic job, becomes the greatest adventure in his life: an adventure with an ending he could never have predicted.