Like most Spanish painters based in Rome around this time, Gallegos y Arnosa was a great admirer of the painting of Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874). He cultivated the précieux style very much in tune with the taste then in vogue. The pleasing realism and his mastery of a refined, painstaking technique were some of the factors explaining the success of his work, for which he won a faithful clientele.

The choice of typically Spanish motifs, painted in small-sized boards and executed with elaborate detail, was frequent among Spanish painters in Rome, and was greatly appreciated by the wealthy clientele of the time. Gallegos Arnosa stood out with the minute detail of his brushwork, his rich textural qualities, and his search for naturalism in the types he depicted, despite the artifice of their picturesque dress.

Although it was painted in Italy, the scene unfolds in a garden full of oleanders and geraniums that evokes the image of Andalusian patios, frequently featured in the work of this artist all through the final decade of the nineteenth century, where a maja and a bullfighter in full costume engage in courtship around a table.