Sabartes left a description of how this painting came about. He was sitting alone and bored at the Cafe La Lorraine when Picasso appeared with their friends. "Unwittingly, I was serving as a model for a picture, a potrait about which I retain two distinct memories: the memory of my unpremeditated pose, in the cafe...( when I was thinking I was alone, I fell into the trap of Picasso's stare), nd the other is the impression I received a few days later in [his studio]...When Picasso put it up on the easel, I was astonished to see myself...[and] the specture of my solitude as Picasso saw it.