At the time this etching was made, Suzanne Valadon was about 43. A favorite character among Picasso (at this time engaged in the development of cubism) and his crowd at the Lapin-Agile in Paris, she had just left her husband and began living with a much younger man; this was a period of heightened creativity and happiness for Valadon (marred only by her concerns about her wayward son, the painter Maurice Utrillo).