In the Bingyin year (1926), Xu Beihong was 32.
The inscription on the lower left side of the painting reads: “Beihong, winter of the Bingyin year (1926).” In his autobiography, In Xu Beihong’s Own Words, the painter wrote, “I made the most work in the Bingyin Year (1926), and some of them were exceptional.”
Flute Music was completed in a sixth-floor studio in Paris’ eighth arrondissement, based on a drawing Xu had made in 1924. The figure in the painting was Xu Beihong’s wife at the time, Jiang Biwei.