This work is one of the illustrations for ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’ commissioned in 1946 by Gallimard to Kees Van Dongen, for the very first colour edition of the book. It illustrates an episode from Volume II, Le Côté de Guermantes (reproduced full-page), published by Gallimard in 1947.Seventy-seven original illustrations were offered for sale by the Proust family in 1976 at Sotheby's London.

Illustrating Proust, one of the greatest aesthetes of the 20th century, posed its own problems: Proust himself often references artworks and even other book illustrations in his magnum opus. For the first edition illustrated in colour, publisher Gallimard turned to one of the great masters of colour of the time: Fauvist painter Kees Van Dongen. Van Dongen's sensibilities, his own portrayals of French and Italian high society and intellectual Bohemia, his portraits made him the perfect candidate to bring to life Proust's societal fresco. This work represents the Duchesse de Guermantes at her theatre logis in one of the famous episodes of the book. Itn is the originbal gouache after which the final illustration was made. Another original illustration by Van Dongen for Proust's "À la recherche..." is held in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New-York.