La Penserosa, or the thoughtful one, was one of ten works that De Camp sent to the major retrospective of the Ten's paintings held at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1908, and was probably painted after a devastating fire in his studio in 1904 destroyed much of his previous work. It is typical of his interior figure scenes of the period in its dramatic side-lighting and focus on the mood rather than the features of the sitter. De Camp's student at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, Rose V.S. Berry, later described his painting method as follows: "De Camp seldom required a fixed, rigid pose of his model. He walked around the sitter, he felt of the head, discovered the texture of the ear, examined its placement upon the head, and proceeded in general with much the line of attack which a sculptor takes...." (Berry, pp. 183-184). The tactile quality of De Camp's surfaces reflects this approach, as does the strong modeling of his figures.

In his article on De Camp for the Dictionary of American Biography, William Howe Downes lists La Penserosa as one of De Camp's best known figure pieces.