Giorgio de Chirico was born in Greece to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father.  The style for which he is most well known is called “Metaphysical painting” which is characterized in this lithograph by the barren landscape, distorted perspectives, tall archways, classical architecture, and Greek sculpture creating a lonely and mysterious space outside the realm of time. De Chirico's Metaphysical paintings were hugely influential for Dada and Surrealist artists throughout Europe, including Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, and René Magritte. The Surrealists recognized in de Chirico’s paintings “the eloquent expression of the unconscious and nonsensical to which they themselves aspired.”

In 1926, de Chirico adopted a more realistic style that featured more conventional subjects causing a break with the Surrealist group and leading André Breton to call him "a lost genius." After a long hiatus from his signature style, de Chirico openly returned to painting Metaphysical subjects around 1955. In the late 1960s, he began working intensely on producing Metaphysical lithographs, of which this series “Sei Lithografie” is a direct result.