For Roger de la Fresnaye, 1913 marked a turning point. He cast off previous influences and from that point on his works were marked by a new maturity.  During this pivotal year the artist completed a series of Cubist still lifes which secured his reputation. He stated "painting is becoming significantly more abstract: imitations of nature are giving way to deliberate and reasoned studies. Young painters are no longer satisfied with the happy coincidences of a quick sketch, and their paintings, at least in terms of their intentions, are more meaningful" (Roger de La Fresnaye, “Opinions”, Montjoie!, vol. 1,🍰 no. 9-10, Paris, November-December 1913, p. 14).

In these compositions, increasingly geometric objects are arranged in a highly-structured fashion.  The artist ꦜ;prepared his composition and, with his theatrical treatment of objects, recalled the collage techniques with which he had al✨ready experimented. The extreme refinement of his palette and the musical resonance of contrasting colors highlight the multilayered structure of the composition. This combination of form and color brings a deconstructive quality that emphasizes the architectural dimension of the still life.

In January 1913, La Fresnaye published an article on Paul Cézanne, in which he repeated the Post-Impressionist artist's famous dictum that one should "…treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, everything brought into proper perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed towards a central point. Lines parallel to the horizon give breadth... lines perpendicular to this horizon give depth. But nature for us men is more depth than surface, whence the need to introduce into our light vibrations, represented by the reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of blueness to give the feel of air" (quoted in Germain Seligman, Roger de La Fresnaye, Neuchâtel, 1969, pp. 276-77).