Eva Herrmann and Joseph Roth likely met with each other in Sanary-Sur-Mer and in Paris. In 1935, the young painter visited her sister Thea, her sister’s husband, the painter Wilhelm Thöny, Klaus Mann and the actress Sybille Binder in Paris. Herrmann was residing at that time in the famous Hotel Quai Voltaire, in which Voltaire died in 1788; other patrons of the hotel have included Richard Wagner, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde and Camille Pissaro. Roth also lived in the hotel during most of his exile. After his beloved home in the Hotel Foyot was lost and the hotel demolished, he lived at the Hotel de la Poste. The portrait drawing of Joseph Roth is from a series of five other charcoal monotypes and a pencil drawing. They are reminiscent of photographs that show Roth in his favorite Cafe Le Tournon.

Several other portraits of well-known intellectuals and artists were created in the Paris workshop of Herrmann's brother-in-law, Thöny. Thöny himself painted a life-size portrait of the two sisters that has not in the collection.