Lenoir is the story of an African stolen from his homeland and sold as a bond-servant into a world he finds baffling, disgusting, and haunted by strange pale spirits. He is renamed Lenoir by his master Dom Twee, an artist's agent, conniver and procurer. His exotic appearance makes him popular as a model for Rembrandt and others; his great intelligence and dignity make him a wry and fascinating observer of the art, sex and profiteering that are the chief preoccupations of the city.

Accused of murder and forced to flee to Antwerp, Lenoir and Twee are taken up on the way by a traveling Italian Commedia del Arte troupe, who find in Lenoir a natural actor - gifted, charismatic, and erotic. He eventually finds work as a model and color mixer in the studio of Peter Paul Rubens, the most celebrated painter of his day, and poses for Rubens's famous character study, Four Heads of a Negro.