Marie Bracquemond was among a few women artists within the Impressionist circle. After exhibiting at the Salon from a relatively young age, she married the printmaker Félix Bracquemond and met artists such as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas through his friendship with them. This drawing is one of several compositions related to Muses of the Arts, one of Bracquemond’s best known works, featuring personifications of various artforms—such as, here, architecture. The completed work was featured in the Exposition Universelle in 1878, while the related drawings, possibly including this one, were singled out for praise in the 1879 Impressionist group exhibition.