This composition, quite high above, evokes the preparation of jam in the kitchen of the artist’s country house in Villeneuve-le-Comte, where the children are involved.

On the right, seen from three-quarters of the way up, the cook in her white apron supervises the cooking of the fruit in a large copper cauldron, spatula in hand. In the foreground, seated in front of the kitchen table, a young girl is preparing fruit in a basin from a basket placed at her bare feet. On the left, in profile, a boy is concentrating, perhaps on closing the pots. At his side, behind the table, another child is watching him, his head resting on his left hand.

This stained-glass painting is built around three bubbles where the characters are isolated, concentrated on their tasks on either side of the kitchen table, with a credence treated as a luminous paving stone and a raised floor, seen from higher than the table, giving a dynamic perspective so dear to the artist.

The flashes of light and shade are spread throughout the composition: from the bits of light in the red and white checked cloth on the girl’s lap, to the flashes of light in the next room, with the white flashes of the tablecloth, the empty glass jars and the cook’s apron dominating in the centre.

In this laborious atmosphere, the face of the lonely, unoccupied child, turned towards the painter, brings us a touch of reverie.