This work is closely related to a painting exhibited in 1890 under the title 'Slumber' and an etching of 1888 titled 'Realities with the magic of a dream.' Carrière often repeated his favourite compositions, which represent emotional states rather than specific individuals. In 1906 a critic a commented on this quality of his work: 'It is the soul stripped of formal accidents, It is mankind hidden under the fiction of an individual personality'. Gwendoline Davies purchased this painting in 1914.
