Whenever he was questioned on the subject, Munch maintained he had not been influenced by the work of the Belgium artist and illustrator Félicien Rops,[1]: 195 p.  specifically the etching Le Plus Bel Amour De Don Juan [Don Juan's Greatest Love], published as an illustration in the second edition of Jules Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly's book Les Diaboliques in 1882 (based on an earlier 1879 pencil drawing).

[2]: 5 p. ) However, art critics and historians have consistently noted the similarities; beginning with Przybyszewski (1894) the first publication ever devoted to Munch.

[5] This state of sexual depression is one that not only his circle of friends shared with him, but that the psychological scholars had also been curious about having just written the first research on the stages and occurrences of puberty in young adults.

[7] Munch gave a number of titles to various versions of the motif, originally The Young Model, later Puberty, and still later At Night.

"The image can thus sustain various interpretations, from a view of a model by an artist to an evocation of nocturnal sensual pleasures and terrors.