This is the only extant close-up portrait of the composer Claude Terrasse (1867–1923), shown here at age thirty. He made earlier cameo appearances in the paintings of his brother-in-law Pierre Bonnard—he had married the latter's sister Andrée in 1891—but in those works his features and character remain elusive.

Süe was a celebrated Art Deco architect and decorator whose career spanned seven decades. He also painted, and in the present work he combines the intuition needed for a character study with the style of the Nabis, artists who had much influenced him. Yet Süe also reveals his decorator's background by giving the wildflower pattern on the large pillow on the right such prominence. This boisterous design and that of the tobacco pouch on the table, together with the sitter's striking red beard, red hair, and pink face, form the only accents of color in a composition of mainly sumptuous browns.