In 1866 Bouguereau left Durand-Ruel for the rival gallery Goupil who had offered him an exclusive contract for his work. Bonhemienne au tambour de Basque must have been one of the first pictures he painted for Goupil. The model of the painting, dressed in similar costume, reappears in later works by the artist: L'italienne au tambourin (1869), Promenade à ane (1878) and Le Repos (1879). Praised for his meticulous attention to detail, Bouguereau was known to sketch the folds of drapery and the hands and feet of his models for hours at a time in his studio in an effort to achieve accuracy in his paintings. This is supremely illustrated in the delicate positioning of the hands of the young woman and in the texture of the folds in her dress in Buhemienne au tambour de Basque. Even the minutest of details (the sunlight which fleetingly strikes her headband and the leaves on the tree behind her) are carefully rendered so as to give the picture a sense of realism.

When the painting was sold on May 21, 1987 at Sotheby's it was authenticated by Mark Steven Walker.