In the early twentieth century, Pichot lived between Paris and Barcelona. At that time, he exhibited his work in the two cities, and it is likely, as the expert Isabel Fabregat has argued, that this oil on canvas, Calle de Santa María, would have been exhibited at Sala Parés in Barcelona in 1901 and then at Galerie Hessèle in Paris the following year.

It was around this time that Pichot’s painting adopted a vernacular of its own, as coeval artists like Miquel Utrillo (1862-1934) and Sebastià Junyent (1865-1908), or the art critic Alfred Opisso noted when talking about the above-mentioned show at Sala Parés. Echoes of post-Impressionism resonate in Pichot’s canvases, and the work at hand shows signs of the taste for colour and short broken brushstrokes that connect his painting with the works on show at the 1905 , the Fauves, with whom he would exhibit.

In this painting he depicts an everyday view of life in the city of Barcelona in the early days of the century. The scene takes place not far from his family home in calle de Santa María, a narrow street with small stalls against the walls. At the centre is an arch that is no longer in place and, on the right, the clothes hanging from the balconies compose a mosaic of colours. The twilight tinges the walls of the cathedral an orange colour while, in a striking chromatic contrast, the areas that are indirectly lit are depicted in cold tones, with a prevalence of greens, against the reddish background. The brushwork is loose and varied around the canvas, outlining certain areas with the paintbrush and applying impasto to others.

This painting captures a contemporary vision of Barcelona at that time as seen through the eyes of an innovative artist.