He stayed primarily near the Moulin de la Galette in the raffish arts community of Montmartre, becoming friends with Satie (whose likeness he portrayed four times) and model-turned painter Suzanne Valadon.

During his 1894 Paris sojourn Rusiñol dropped his earlier bohemianism, which he admitted was a pose for his travel writing,[2] and rented a luxurious furnished flat on the Quai de Bourbon, Île Saint-Louis.

A tall, fragile-looking Parisienne with haunted eyes, she posed for Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Ramon Casas and Alfredo Müller; in several of her known portraits and figure studies she is dressed in deuil noire, suggesting she was in mourning for a loved one.

Nantas focuses on the score before her with a cool stare that gives nothing away; an empty candle holder on the piano is swiveled forward as if in use, acting as a sort of barrier to keep the two at a proper distance.

In terms of the genre the work could be a dry spoof or private joke, reinforced by the artist having two Montmartre bohemians portray a perfectly respectable young couple.

"A Romance" could be a face value title or the type of piano piece Nantas is playing; or it could be an ironic allusion to Satie's affair with Suzanne Valadon, which had ended traumatically (for him) a year earlier.