This work was inspired by Mallarmé's work L'Après-midi d'un Faune and was given by Gauguin to Mallarmé in exchange for a copy of the poet's idyll inscribed au samage et bibliophile, son ami Stéphane Mallarmé. The composition consists of three main figures, one with goat legs, and two small figures which appear in the interstices of the composition. The face of the goat-legged faun is that of Tefaton, the Polynesian earth god.