This is one of a number of paintings Rouault made of a female head depicted in profile. As in this painting, he often painted in a heavy impasto with thick black outlines. This style is indebted to his early training as a maker of stained-glass windows. 'Head' relates closely to a project for a tapestry, hence the decorative border. In the 1930s Rouault frequently included a border in his paintings, forming a 'frame within a frame' for the picture.