In the early 1890s, Redon made the transition from the dark works of his early years to the brilliant pastels and oil paintings of still-lifes and mythological and religious subjects which constitute his mature output. The mythological subjects were especially well suited to his poetic imagination and splendid brushwork - Apollo's ride, Pegasus' flight, the birth of Venus, etc. all appear frequently in the works of the nineties and after the turn of the century.

However, the present subject only appears on one occasion in the Artist's oeuvre. It belongs to a series of small watercolours undertaken in the last decade of his life in which Redon allowed himself to deal with some sexually disturbing themes with a directness that he avoided in larger, more public works.