With his letter to Gauguin from Émile Bernard, he intended to make studies of nature in the picturesque countryside around Pont-Aven.

Sérusier and Gauguin had walked to the Bois d'Amour, a particularly picturesque landscape of forest and rocks along the river Aven, not far from the village.

Many of them made fun of it, but several, particularly Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard, and Paul Ranson, Henri-Gabriel Ibels and Renée Piot, were highly enthusiastic.

[3] Sérusier was active in the Nabis in the beginning, but in about 1895 he began to turn toward the doctrine of esotericism, and the mystical theories of Father Desiderius Lenz.

The reputation of Sérusier and the Talisman was kept alive by the efforts of Maurice Denis, the chief theorist and historian of the Nabis, He became the guardian of the painting in about 1903, and wrote continually about the importance of the artist and the work.

After the death of Denis, the painting became part of the collection of the French government, and eventually of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.