Alfred Émile Léopold Stevens was born in Brussels on May 11, 1823 but spent most of his life in Paris. From 1844 onwards, he mingled with artists like Eugene Delacroix, Theodore Rousseau, Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas, earning him the description “the Fleming who was more Parisian than most Parisians”. His focus at the beginning of his career was slightly historical with a hint of Romanticism. It soon evolved more towards Realism as the social issues of the time started to become more prominent. In Paris however, he became influenced by the Belle Epoque and all the luxury it entailed, shifting the focus of his paintings in an entirely new but still very realistic and humane direction.

Upper-class Parisian women of the Second Empire, followed later by the Third Republic, became his prominent subject: women who seemed to have nothing better to do than wait for something to happen. These paintings are suffused with an air of melancholy and despair, which clashes with their otherwise colorful and ingeniously detailed style. Stevens was a keen observer of these women’s inner and outer states. Not only does he accurately portray their feelings of loneliness and boredom, he also has a remarkable eye for gestures, facial expressions and habits. The lavish nineteenth century salons decorated with silk fabrics and lacquer in which these ladies spent their days were perceived as fundamentally shallow, contrasting the superficial beauty of the period with its inner anguish. Stevens did a spectacular job in creating tangible textures and fragrant flowers that produce a truly dramatic and decadent atmosphere, which successfully distracts the viewer from the hidden truth beneath the shiny surface. His paintings resemble snapshots of crucial moments in the lives of women. Stevens often incorporated books and letters in his oeuvre, which have the intriguing effect of inviting the spectator to make up stories about what could have happened or is going to happen. Turmoil, sorrow and hapless news: recurring themes in Stevens’ work as he depicts women's response or anticipation to these consuming states.

Although the identity of the sitter in the present painting is unknown, like the other models in Stevens’s paintings, she is strong but vulnerable. These rare moments when women get to be themselves, behind closed doors and away from prying eyes, are what appears to fascinate Stevens.