The depicted wears a black top hat and a brown jacket, under which is a white shirt, of which only the collar can be seen.

In this picture she was depicted in a pose similar to that in the painting Madame Manet at the Piano (1868, Musée d'Orsay).

[2] Moreover, Manet had used the same suit jacket that he wore in Self-Portrait with Palette in the painting At "Père Lathuille" (also from 1879), for the depiction of the son of the restaurant's owner.

There the painter stands almost in the background of his studio, while his models, the five-year-old Margarita Teresa of Spain and her servants, occupy the foreground.

From here Manet appropriated the pose of the painter and his equipment, but as opposed to Velázquez, he makes himself the thematic center of the image.

Manet himself between 1865 and 1870 portrayed Velázquez in a studio scene in which the Spanish painter is posed similarly to his self-portrait.

As a practical matter painters did not and do not wear formal dress while working, as it could far too easily be ruined by oil paint.

In 1870 Manet had sat for the painter Henri Fantin-Latour in the painting Un atelier aux Batignolles while similarly well-dressed.

The chronological proximity of the two paintings implies a direct connection between them; accordingly, they have been considered as two stages of a work in progress.

"[7] After Manet's death the two pictures hung on either side of the 1877 painting Jean-Baptiste Faure in the Role of Hamlet.

From this arrangement Stoichiţă concludes that the choice of this Spanish influenced painting was meant to evoke a renewed parallel to Velázquez.

The artist's hand moves with too much fire, painting so freely here, that it is impossible for the painter to seriously focus upon himself as an object.

"[8] On the other hand, Theodore Reff in 1982 emphasized the meaning of Manet's decision to approach self-portraiture, which he had never before attempted, at the high point of his career.

Manet's widow does not appear to have wanted to sell them until 1897, as Antonin Proust in a letter from May 10 of that year stated that neither Jean-Baptiste Faure nor Auguste Pellerin were interested in the paintings.

On 2 February 1899, Suzanne Manet bequeathed the pictures to her sister Martina Leenhoff, probably with the intention of aiding her during financial difficulties.

[9] In May 1910, the Self-Portrait with Palette appeared in an exhibit at the gallery of Georges Petit in Paris, where it was labeled as on loan from the widow of the Marquis Etienne de Ganay.