José Villegas is considered one of the maximum exponents of nineteenth-century orientalist painting in Spain. The movement sought to represent the exoticism of Northern Africa, a particularly attractive destination for many fin-de-siècle painters who journeyed there in quest of other iconographies and aesthetics, winning them both public and critical acclaim at the time.

Produced in the late 1870s, this watercolour painting shows the influence of Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874) both in the skill and assurance with which the artist handles this technique—with a sketchy background as one can see in many other instances—as well as in the choice of an orientalist theme, which was very popular among painters who, like Villegas, were working in Rome around this time.

It depicts two musicians, one of them playing a rebec and singing while the other one, squatting, plays a two-reed flute as a snake sways to its tune. The same snake appears in another watercolour, Odalisque (1878), also painted in Rome, but with a more finished quality.