Originally produced for Channel 4, the film is a form of murder mystery, set in rural Wiltshire, England in 1694 (during the joint reign of William III and Mary II).

Mr Neville, a young and conceited artist, is contracted by Mrs Virginia Herbert to produce a series of twelve landscape drawings of her country house, its outbuildings and gardens, as a gift for her cold and neglectful husband, who is currently away on business.

Eventually Mrs Herbert, wearied by Mr Neville's excessive sexual appetite, tries to terminate the contract before the drawings are completed.

Despite his protests, the group of men blind him and beat him to death, finally casting his body into the moat at the place where Mr Herbert's corpse was found.

The film was inspired when Greenaway, who trained as an artist before becoming a filmmaker, spent three weeks drawing a house near Hay-on-Wye while holidaying with his family.

The ground for one of the most popular pieces, "An Eye for Optical Theory", is considered to be probably composed by William Croft, a contemporary of Purcell.

"It's like harpsichord and a lot of strings, woodwind and a bit of brass," remarked Neil Hannon, frontman of The Divine Comedy.

"[10] The following ground sources are taken from the chart in Pwyll ap Siôn's The Music of Michael Nyman: Text, Context and Intertext, reordered to match their sequence on the album.

"Contract" quite openly refers to Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour and other French and Italian artists".

The site's consensus reads: "Smart and utterly original, The Draughtsman's Contract is a period piece that marks the further maturation of a writer-director with a thrillingly unique vision".

[14] Roger Ebert, who gave the film a full four stars, wrote, "What we have here is a tantalizing puzzle, wrapped in eroticism and presented with the utmost elegance.

"[15] In Slant, a mildly positive Jeremiah Kipp called it "a first, fledgling attempt at what he later perfected, but that modesty could be seen as a virtue, since there is indeed some form of narrative here instead of the nonlinear, compulsive list-making and categorization that drives some people crazy about his other films.

"[16] Danny Peary wrote that "Greenaway handles everything with such elegance that we are totally unprepared for the final act of cruelty.

Umbrella Entertainment released the digitally restored film on DVD in Australia, with special features including an introduction and commentary by Peter Greenaway, an interview with composer Michael Nyman, behind the scenes footage and on set interviews, deleted scenes, trailers and a featurette on the film's digital restoration.