This was the second portrait Zorn did of Mme Simon, he abandoned the first image after pulling a few proofs. On his second attempt at the portrait, before steel-facing the plate, he pulled an edition of around 65, 30 of which were in this fourth state of four, printed on a japan paper, half of these were printed on a larger paper.
After the plate was steel-faced he printed another edition of 150, also on japan paper and also half of which were printed on a large paper. He later pulled a small edition of 20 impressions for the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia that was pencil signed.
This image was commissioned in 1895 by the German art magazine PAN in an edition of 1100 on ordinary paper with the added text: "Anders Zorn - Portrait".