This large portrait of a man in a suit is painted in straight strokes and dark colours that are underlined by the delicate white breastpocket.

The solid composition, punctuated by the position of the model’s body, well seated in his armchair, is lightened by the small bouquet of flowers and by the pages of the open book in front of him, which we imagine turning in the wind from the open window.

The seriousness of the dress and the sobriety of its colours would almost make it an official portrait, if it were not transfigured by the sketch of the model’s smile to the painter, translating an obvious complicity, and by the rich cameo treatments of the garden in the background, the coloured tablecloth and the carpet on the floor, which surround the model with coloured vibrations.

These luminous stained glass windows respond to each other without joining together and highlight in three dimensions this elegant portrait of an unruffled man.

The model is Pierre-Camille Lacaze, the artist’s grand-cousin, who lived with the artist while studying at the university of Paris in the 1960s before becoming a professor of chemistry at the Pierre and Marie Curie University of Paris VI.