René Princeteau was a good influence on the young Lautrec. From 1878 to 1882 he was a frequent visitor to the studio of the older painter whose advice and experience he sought. Lautrec, following his master, began to develop a style of rapid brush strokes with which he was able to capture both movement and the humour that is often visible in the drawings with which his letters were filled. There was a strong affinity between the young artist and his older teacher which was perhaps stimulated by their both suffering physical disabilities. Princeteau was deaf and dumb.

Lautrec here presents Princeteau at work on a canvas just as he had drawn him in a letter to his uncle Charles at the end of 1881 in which he had confirmed his intention of becoming a painter. At this time he was using much the same palette as Princeteau himself and which lent itself to the environment of Princeteau's studio as described by Jules Hoche. "There in the midst of a welter of curios, a supremely elegant disarray, stands a tall magnificent boyish figure. I am with Princeteau who is one of the old school, the favourite painter of horsemen and by common consent the most versed in the complicated anatomy of the modern horse. A vast sculpture of Brunhilde with streaming hair, dragged along by a wild horse, reminds me that, before he achieved fame as a talented painter, Princeteau made his Salon debut as a sculptor" (J. Hoche, Les Parisiens chez eux, Paris, 1883).

This sculpture which was exhibited at the 1875 Salon is visible in the background of the painting. Lautrec also painted a further portrait of Princeteau in the same year in which the artist is seated on an armchair in his studio (D. 131)