In October 1906 Gino Severini arrived in Paris. He has no support, has little command of the language and has no money, but his stay in the city is sustained by such enthusiasm as to alleviate the urgent worries of daily subsistence. Severini quickly enters into a relationship with the lively Parisian artistic and cultural environment. Introduced by Amedeo Modigliani he begins to frequent the Lapine Agile, weaving links with the numerous artists and poets who gravitated around the famous cabaret.

The self-portrait in pastel, affectionately dedicated on the front to his friend Baldo "one of a few brothers in the struggle and aspirations", is accompanied by an autograph dating to 1908 which is supposed

on purpose later, at the same time as the donation to Baldo. Severini depicts himself thin, with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and an indolent gaze, at a time in his life when “things were pretty bad, and so was…. health left something to be desired ". An economic, physical and psychological condition, which accompanies the first glimpses of the Parisian stay. Severini's appearance in ours appears very different from those of the previous three self-portraits where he represents himself with an elegant, absorbed, brilliant, sly, confident and imperturbable tone. In ours, the physiognomy is sketched with a nervous and synthetic gesture, which detects the lights with icy yellows and pure whites, identifies the semitones with warm oranges and impalpable pinks, defines the shadows with acid greens and dark blues. The blue of the melancholy eyes echoes in the hint of a jacket, bouncing off the vibrant coal hair of prussia and cobalt. Crossed by sparse traces of ocher, the neutral background breathes the same sad mood of the face, immersing it in an atmosphere with a symbolist flavor.