Édouard Vuillard, along with his contemporary Pierre Bonnard, is considered the most secular-minded of the Nabis painters. Vuillard painted in a style labeled Intimisme, producing countless scenes of domestic life. This genre of painting developed from his celebrated Nabis period, where his work was characterized by a decorative flatness and by an emphasis on color. The artist introduced new elements in his work with highly patterned surfaces and detailed decorations, thereby creating mystifying and enchanting paintings of women in domestic interiors.

The present work depicts an elegantly clad woman, likely seated within the artist’s studio, and reveals Vuillard’s superlative skill as a portrait painter. The model gazes pensively beyond the picture plane, and her face is softly portrayed under the shadow of her hat, which with its brightly colored pink and green trimmings, vies to be the subject of the picture itself. Stephen Brown has noted with specific reference to the artist's portraits that: "Vuillard may be seen as the heir of Degas, Gauguin and the Impressionists. He was also an artist of his time and, more precisely, the artist of a particular social milieu and moment…" (Stephen Brown, Édouard Vuillard, A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940, New Haven, 2012, p. 33). Vuillard’s portraits act as an intriguing record of early twentieth-century Parisian life, documenting rich lives of the cultural elite during this period.