Not having gone through any artistic training, Hugo Alesi engaged in spiritualism, sometimes in front of a large audience; during the séances he was able to execute the portrait of a deceased person about whom a member of the audience was thinking. According to the writer Jules Bois, a follower of the occult, “’the spirits’ have taught him the trade.” He became famous later for his posters extolling the seaside resorts of the Belle Epoque. The drawing presented here is the only one — to our knowledge — that can be attributed to his spiritualist production.