In Paris toward the end of World War II Picasso met Françoise Gilot, a young artist 40 years his junior. For the next decade, Picasso and Françoise lived together and she became the mother of two of his children, Claude and Paloma. Françoise began to appear in some drawings as early as 1943, but it was not until 1946 when they started living together that her image dominated the artist's oeuvre.

The present painting belongs to a series of four portraits executed on February 18-19, 1947. In each of the four works the woman is seated in an armchair before a plain background; her body is composed of a combination of geometric elements and her face has been reduced to a simple triangle. The manner of dividing the picture into large areas of solid contrasting colors and the extreme economy in the definition of space displays the impact of the artist's recent interest in lithography. Picasso first experimented with this technique after being introduced by Georges Braque to the studio of Mourlot in November, 1945.

Maya Widmaier-Picasso confirms the authenticity of this painting in a photo-certificate dated Paris, March, 1995.