Profil de jeune Fille illustrates the influence of three different forces on Maillol's work in the 1890s: the flatness of the picture plane owes much to Gauguin whom Maillol had met in 1892, the range of Maillol's colours and 'classical order' of the composition owes much to the Nabis whom he joined in 1893 and the choice of subject reflects the Symbolists' infatuation with the spirituality of young women.

Maillol's finest works of the early 1890s revolve around these Renaissance-style portraits of young girls in profile. Describing Maillol's interest in these portraits, Wendy Slatkin writes, "This female type also recurs consistently in the paintings of the Nabis. One need only thumb through a group of illustrations of Nabi works from 1890 to 1895 to see the many slender, fragile young women, with pale necks, often dressed in white ... In general, these women, depicted either singly or in groups, are adolescent or just in the first blossoming of womanhood. They are innocent and virginal, sinless Eves before the fall. In Nabi paintings, 'the figure is of interest not anatomically but rather as a vessel of the spirit ... Nudes are relatively rare.' There is very little depicted action. Figures often seem to be lost in private meditation and they are designed to stimulate the viewer to his own revery." (Aristide Maillol in the 1890s, Michigan, 1976, p. 32)