A true history of art would be filled with examples of women artists who have given up their work when they have married, particularly if they married other artists. Agneta Elers-Jarleman has dramatized the story of one such woman, the painter Ester Ellqvist, who married John Bauer, known for his fairytale illustrations. Ester became part of John's own private fairytale before she died in a shipwreck in 1918. Lena T. Hansson's sensitive portrayal of Ester is central to the film's depiction of the problems that women had in the early part of this century in becoming and remaining artists with the pressures on them to conform. Ironically, it was in order to make a new life, and resume painting, that Ester left Stockholm with her family on the fated journey; the woman who wanted "both to paint and to live" was to do neither.