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 One day, during the long bitterly cold winter of 1934, the unknown and mostly unsold artist, Eben Adams, was trying desperately to sell his recent works at the small New York art dealers Matthews and Spinney. All were rejected but one. This was accepted out of kindness by Spinney, an elderly endearing lady . Feeling again very depressed, Eben then walked to Central Park just to be alone with his thoughts and sat down on a bench. Next to him was an object wrapped in newspaper. Just as he began to open it, Eben heard a young girl, whom he had not noticed in the evening twilight playing in the snow, call out that it was hers. She came over to him and said her name was Jennie Appleton. Jennie, who was well dressed but in old fashioned clothes of about 1900 in style, claimed that her parents were actors at a vaudeville house called Hammerstein's Victoria. Eben replied in smiling disbelief  that this theater had been demolished several decades earlier. She began examining his paintings and became suddenly very frightened by one depicting a lighthouse on a rocky point off Cape Cod. Jennie quietly told Eben that she must leave, so he turned to pick up her package for her. When he turned back a moment later, however, Jennie had oddly gone.  Later that evening inside his room at a boardinghouse, Eben opened the package, and inside was Jennie's silk scarf. Their meeting stayed fixed in his mind for there was something altogether very extraordinary and appealing about her. With greatly lifted spirits he felt inspired to paint a portrait of Jennie, and the next day, while dining at an inexpensive restaurant, began to tell his friend, Gus O'Toole, a taxi driver, about her. Eben took out the scarf to show Gus and it is then he noticed a most curious thing. There was an advertisement for Jennie's parents' act on the newspaper, which was dated 1910.  During their cheap meal of corned beef and cabbage and beer, Gus, hoping to procure a little work for Eben introduced him to the restaurant's Irish American owner, Mr. Moore, and convinced him to hire Eben to paint a mural of Irish politician "Mic" Collins above the bar, which Gus insisted would attract patriotic Irish customers.

A few days later, Eben took a break from painting the mural and went to Central Park again hoping to find Jennie. He did indeed encounter her but was amazed to see that she seemed to have changed into an older girl. When Eben asked to meet her parents, Jennie agreed to return to the park with them, but they never appeared. Anxious and confused about her, Eben decided to look for her in Times Square. There, he found the exact site where Hammerstein's theater had once been, and the guard at the new building, Pete, who had also worked for Hammerstein's, told Eben to see a black woman named Clara Morgan. Clara, who had known the Appletons well, showed him photographs of Jennie and told him that Jennie's parents were tragically killed one night when their high-wire broke during a performance. Afterwards, she recalled that Jennie was sent to live at a convent. That evening, Eben went back to the park and at last found Jennie sat sobbing on a bench. Jennie told him about her parents' death, which she maintained had occurred earlier that evening.

Sometime afterwards, Mr. Moore, the restaurant owner, held a large noisy party to celebrate the unveiling of the Collins mural. Eben, though thankful for the money, longed for Jennie. When Jennie finally did return again, she had now strangely matured into a beautiful college student. In his room, Eben showed the finished portrait to Jennie and, watched very approvingly by her, signed it. She told him it would one day make him famous. Then, but a short while afterwards, Jennie suddenly and mysteriously left his room, having told him that they would meet again. After she had gone, Eben, who was both deeply in love but very bewildered, decided to try to find out more about her. He traveled to the convent where she had lived and became utterly devastated to learn that Jennie, in fact, had drowned many years before after her boat was lost in a tidal wave off Cape Cod. It occurred to him that somehow, in their depressed and very lonely states, her spirit had become attracted to his. That the events of her life and circumstances for brief periods could become his too. Discovering at the convent the anniversary of her death was imminent, he wondered if he could rescue her desperately across time. Eben then quickly traveled to the place where Jennie had hired a boat. He rented a boat just as Jennie had done, and rowed out to the spot near the lighthouse where Jennie drowned. Suddenly, from a peaceful sea the great storm that had killed her came swiftly upon him, and Eben's boat was smashed against the rocks below the empty lighthouse. However, he managed to clamber across the rocks to reach its relative safety. After calling out Jennie's name, Eben saw her boat tossing in the waves and, struggling in the storm, rushed to help her onto the rocks. The tidal way was much too strong though, and she was swept away.

Miraculously, he survived and was rescued by another boat owner who had come out after the storm had passed to see what had become of him. Later, back at the little fishing town, he lay recovering in bed discussing the event to Spinney, the old lady art dealer who had become his friend and come to visit him.  He realized then that although she was very sympathetic, she did not really believe his story. That, in fact, she thought he had imagined Jennie as a solace against a low period of his life. But then something incredible happened.  He saw in Spinney's hands Jennie's silk scarf.  He excitedly asked her where she had got it and she replied that it was just found by him on the beach when he was rescued. At that moment his eyes shone with intense happiness ... for he knew that Jennie had indeed been real and that he would meet her again, and forever, when he died.

Eben's paranormal experience showed itself for the rest of his life for his works, which had been formerly quite ordinary, suddenly became greatly inspired.

The Famous Portrait Of Jennie.

Here is the opening of the very famous 1948 film from the book "Portrait Of Jennie" by Robert Nathan about this story.  If you watch the complete film on DVD you will never forget it.