This painting was produced in Paris in the brief period when Gauguin was interested in Symbolism. It depicts a Breton landscape with a naked young woman lying in the foreground. Behind her, a fox, the symbol of lust in Hindu mythology, can be seen. In the background, a wedding procession in Breton costumes is approaching the nude.

This was Gauguin's last major work produced before he left for Tahiti at the beginning of April 1891. Although it depicts a Breton scene - the figures in the background are often thought to be an ironical depiction of a wedding party - the work was produced in Paris, using Gauguin's 20-year old mistress, Juliette Huet, whom he left pregnant with his child when he went to Tahiti. The obvious precedent for the reclining female nude was Manet's Olympia, which had finally been bought by the French state.