Eugène Carrière (1849-1906) was a French Symbolist artist of the fin-de-siècle period. Carrière's paintings are best known for their near-monochrome brown palette and their ethereal, dreamlike quality. He was a close friend of Auguste Rodin and his work likely influenced Pablo Picasso's Blue Period.

It was probably the artist's intention that we cannot identify the woman at the piano whose back is turned to the viewer, nor her companion whose blurred features are shown in profile. Although Eugène Carrière often used his family members as models, and may well have done so in this case, as a leading Symbolist he painted them as a microcosm of humanity, with the subjects of his pictures often being universal human relationships rather than specific individuals. The almost monochromatic brown palette and soft focus contribute to the naturalistic recreation of light, space and colour.