This is a portrait of Salvador Robert, one of the Sitges personalities whom Santiago Rusiñol (Barcelona, 1861-Aranjuez 1931) painted between 1893 and 1895. The common denominator they share is that they were all friends or acquaintances of Rusiñol and that, therefore, the artist painted them for mere pleasure, without being subjected to the pressures entailed in a commissioned work.
Rusiñol used a palette of greys and whites to convey the sitter’s soul, whose gaze is focused pensively on the music score.