This solitary archaeologist is a version from the Thrities of a model, sometimes entitled philosopher, sometimes archaeologist, poet or painter, and with various other titles in other cases, which de Chirico invented in the Twenties and continued to create in couples or single versions for the entirety of his career. In this painting the almost monochrome colouring of the room, pervaded by a warm luminosity creates a timeless atmosphere, in which suspended in the air hangs that feeling of waiting given by the raised hand of someone who is on the cusp of saying something but does not manage to do so.