Although the painting is neither signed nor dated, stylistically it belongs to the group of still lifes Gris composed while in Céret, a small town in the Pyrenees, from August to October 1913. It was a most productive period for the artist. By then he had developed a colorful Cubist style of broad, angular, overlapping planes, a style that within a year would evolve into a fully formed Synthetic Cubism, influenced by Picasso's and Braque's papiers collées.

On the simulated wood-grain table rest three playing cards—heart, diamond, and club—a violin, and the newspaper Le Journal. The violin is indicated by different shaded passages of wood-graining, as also by the instrument's purple, green, and black "shadows." Black, sky blue, and purple angular planes enrich the composition, which is set against a deep rust-red diamond-patterned background emulating the wallpaper.

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