The title of this book refers to a portrait of Rodrigo Cambará painted by a friend of the doctor, Don Pepe Garcia. The Spanish painter wants to portrait his friend as vigorous and powerful as he is, and when he finishes he states this painting was his masterpiece. In a clever reference to The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Wilde, Rodrigo himself starts a fast decay into savagery and brutality, ending up sick in bed (since the first chapter of the book is set in 1945, we already know that by the start), while his Picture remains just as it was painted to remind him of the man he once was.