Delphin Enjolras was born on May 13, 1857 in the historic town of Coucouron in the Ardèche. His formal artistic training began in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under the esteemed Salon painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. Enjolras also studied with Pascal Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret and Gustave Claude Etienne Courtois, and is recorded as having furthered his artistic education at the Ecole de Dessin in Paris under Gaston Gérard. Having made his debut at the Société des Artistes Français in 1889 he was elected a member in 1901 and continued to show works with the Société up until 1909.

Best known for his dazzling studies of young women illuminated by lamp light or engaged in domestic activities, he also portrayed a number of Orientalist subjects, genre scenes and society portraits. In addition Enjolras painted city views as well as beautiful landscapes. The majority of his works exhibited at the Salon (from 1890) tended to focus contemporary bourgeois settings of which the present work is typical.