Its staging evokes the studio of French painter Édouard Manet and represents him seated and painting. Seated beside him is Zacharie Astruc. The other figures from left to right are painters Otto Scholderer, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, writer Émile Zola (bearded with eyeglasses in his hand), Edmond Maître, Frédéric Bazille (in profile), and Claude Monet. It is known a portrait of Zacharie Astruc by Manet, and it is perhaps the episode of the creation of this painting that is represented.[2]
The painting was exhibited at the 1870 Salon, in Paris.