In the dazzling glitter of 1903 Vienna, Adele Bloch-Bauer -- young, beautiful, brilliant, and Jewish -- meets painter Gustav Klimt. Wealthy in everything but freedom, Adele embraces Klimt's renegade genius as the two awaken to the erotic possibilities on the canvas and beyond. Though they enjoy a life where sex and art are just beginning to break through the facade of conventional society, the city is also exhibiting a disturbing increase in anti-Semitism as political hatred foments in the shadows of Adele's coffeehouse afternoons and cultural salons. Nearly forty years later, Adele's niece Maria Altmann is a newlywed when the Nazis invade Austria and overnight her beloved Vienna becomes a war zone. When her husband is arrested and her family is forced out of their home, Maria must summon the courage and resilience that is her aunt's legacy if she is to survive and keep her family -- and their history -- alive. Will Maria and her family escape the Nazis' grip? And what will become of the paintings that her aunt nearly sacrificed everything for?