A large, high still life with, in the foreground, an oval table on which are placed an open book with a reproduction of a man’s bust, a bottle of cointreau, objects with a silver sheen and a large bouquet of orange-red tulips in a 1900 vase.

On the right-hand side, behind the bouquet, in the shadows, are canvases covered with a purple fabric with a blue border. On the left, behind a cane armchair, in line with the table, is the perspective of a French window opening onto a field of apple trees in blossom under the sun.

The portrait of the man is a reproduction of the 1925 self-portrait by the painter Othon Friesz, whom Germaine Lacaze studied with in the 1930s, after her training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

Evoking the Normandy birthplace of the painter born in Le Havre, this tribute canvas painted in 1979 on the centenary of his birth can also be read as Germaine Lacaze’s response 40 years after Othon Friesz urged her to do the same at his exhibition at the Barreiro Gallery in 1939 :

“Work Lacaze, and the cupboards full at forty-five”.

The tulip in profile on the right appears to be a hand lifting the fabric to show the painted canvases of the promise kept.