Modigliani consistently integrated stylistic features of African art into his distinctive portraits. This work represents Lola de Valence, a famous dancer who had previously modeled for Edouard Manet. Recalling a type of mask made in the French Congo, the head's elongated shape and abstracted facial features also appear in Modigliani's limestone sculpture Woman's Head. Although the artist had abandoned sculpture to focus exclusively on painting by 1914, his African-inflected sculptural style was a touchstone for his painted portraits until his untimely death in 1920.