Our drawing depicts an artist's studio with a grand piano in the center and a musician playing it. The studio is filled with a multitude of different objects: we can recognize plaster busts taken from ancient statues, paintings, lamps, a Japanese-style umbrella, a floor warmer and much more: objects undoubtedly useful to a painter.

We can venture the hypothesis that our studio belongs to an artist-musician and that it is in Villa Medici in Rome. This last hypothesis can be deduced from the panorama of the city that can be seen from the open window: the dome in the foreground would seem to be that of the church of San Carlo al Corso.

The vaulted ceiling of the room and the small window would also suggest that we are inside one of the studios of the French Academy in Rome.

Alfred Émile Léopold Stevens (11 May 1823 – 24 August 1906) was a Belgian painter, known for his paintings of elegant modern women.

After gaining attention early in his career with a social realist painting depicting the plight of poor vagrants, he achieved great critical and popular success with his scenes of upper-middle class Parisian life.

Stevens was born in Brussels. He came from a family involved with the visual arts: his older brother Joseph (1816–1892) and his son Léopold (1866–1935) were painters, while another brother Arthur (1825–1899) was an art dealer and critic.

After the death of his father in 1837, Stevens left middle school to begin study at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where he knew François Navez. In 1843, Stevens went to Paris, joining his brother Joseph who was there. He was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts.

Stevens's works were shown publicly for the first time in 1851, when three of his paintings were admitted to the Brussels Salon.

He was awarded a third-class medal at the Paris Salon in 1853, and a second-class medal at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1855. His Ce qu'on appelle le vagabondage [What is called vagrancy] (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) attracted the attention of Napoleon III. Two other paintings he exhibited at the Salon in Antwerp that year, Chez soi or At Home and The Painter and his Model (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore), introduced subjects from "la vie moderne" for which he became known: an elegant young woman in contemporary dress and the artist in his studio.

He and his brother were becoming part of the art world of Paris, meeting people such as the Goncourt brothers and Alexandre Dumas.

In 1858, Stevens married Fanny Juliette Blanc (1836–1891), who came from a rich Belgian family. Eugène Delacroix was a witness at the ceremony.

During the 1860s, Stevens became an immensely successful painter, known for his paintings of elegant modern women. His exhibits at the Salons in Paris and Brussels attracted favorable critical attention and buyers.

In 1863, he received the Legion of Honor from the French government. In 1867, he won a first-class medal at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

Stevens fought for the French during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, but returned to Belgium with his wife and family before the Paris Commune. They returned after the war, and he continued to achieve critical acclaim as well as great success with collectors.

The single most important work from the second half of Stevens's career is the monumental Panorama du Siècle, 1789–1889, which he painted with Henri Gervex. Stevens painted the women and details and Gervex the men, with the help of fifteen assistants. It was shown to great acclaim at the International Exhibition held in Paris in 1889. He also received several great professional tributes.

In 1895, a large exhibition of his work was held in Brussels. In 1900, Stevens was honored by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris with the first retrospective exhibition ever given to a living artist. Supported by patrons led by the Comtesse de Greffulhe, it achieved social cachet as well as popular success. In 1905, he was the only living artist allowed to exhibit in a retrospective show of Belgian art in Brussels. Despite these exhibitions, he was not able to sell enough of his work to manage well financially.

He died in Paris in 1906, living alone in modest rooms, whilst remaining in touch with his four children.