This drawing is one of the nearly a hundred pastels Whistler executed in 1879–80 in Venice, which he visited to fulfill a commission to make etchings for the Fine Art Society, London. Whistler's Venetian pastels fall into two categories: piquant, sometimes raw, color impressions of city and harbor; and architectural vignettes, like this example, closely related to some of his etchings. The title of this picture is consonant with the musical vocabulary with which Whistler identified much of his work. The pink "note" is the drapery hung from the balcony at upper left; the brown is the window frame to its right. The pink is echoed in the tint of the woman's dress, a few bricks of the wall, and the artist's butterfly monogram at lower right.

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