Angelo, an artist, determined to paint a Madonna, goes in search of a model. He meets at the studio of one of his friends a whimsical young lady named Suzette, who offers to pose for him. But at his studio she does not take his actions seriously, jumps down from the model’s throne and after throwing a kiss to him runs away. He next meets an old acquaintance, named Toto, at a cabaret show who agrees to pose for him. But as he begins to paint, he discovers that she lacks that Madonna-like expression. He tells her so, and she flies into a rage. She is about to stab him with his palette knife when she is interrupted by the appearance of Marie, sent to Angelo by his friend, Angelo is struck by her beauty and innocent ways and tells her that as soon as she has seen a little of life she will be his great Madonna. He takes her to a restaurant where they again meet the infuriated Toto. In a jealous rage Toto is about to run a stiletto into the body of Marie, but Angelo receives the wound. Angelo is carried to his studio where he is nursed back to health by Marie. Later he marries her. Knowing that his wife’s looks lack one thing, the humanity of the mother of sorrows, he goes in search of his ideal for his great painting. After five months of unsuccessful searching he returns to his home town where he meets, outside a café, his friend, Jim Townsend, who is made acquainted with his fruitless search. After giving vent to his sorrows he again starts on his journey for his ideal. Through the death of a relative Jim Townsend comes in for a fortune. Determined to help Angelo and Marie, he calls upon her and notes that she is sewing in expectancy of an heir. He buys a little cottage in the suburbs into which he moves her. He then tells her that he will search for Angelo and bring him back. Several months later Angelo comes to Jim’s studio still without a model. Jim tells him that he has found his great Madonna and taking him to the new cottage bids him enter wherein he will find what he is seeking. As he opens the door he beholds Marie sitting in the sunlight with a tiny baby in her arms, radiant in the sanctity of motherhood. He is fascinated and reverently kisses her. He brings his easel and begins work on his masterpiece. A short while after they receive a letter from Jim Townsend saying that he is sending the deed for the cottage as a present to Angelo, the younger. Angelo places the deed in the baby’s hands and with his arms around Marie looks proudly from his model wife to his finished masterpiece, “The Great Madonna.”