Completed in about 1879, the painting was already in the collection of the French banker Ernest May when it was listed in the catalogue of the fourth Impressionist exhibition that year.

[1] May stands in the center of the picture wearing a top hat and pince-nez, listening to his colleague, a certain M. Bolâtre, leaning over his shoulder.

[2] Although the owner and possible commissioner of the work was himself Jewish, art historian Linda Nochlin has interpreted the painting as an anti-Semitic depiction of Jews in Paris, due especially to the exaggerated features and postures of the subjects.

[3] British art historian Richard Shone has written about the oil painting and its pastel study without mentioning anti-Semitism.

[4] While anti-Semitism has a long history in France, there is little evidence of Degas holding this attitude until the time of the Dreyfus affair two decades later.