Matisse and André Derain first introduced unnaturalistic colors and bold brushstrokes into their paintings during the summer of 1905, when they were both working in Collioure. In the fall of that year, when these pictures were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris, the critic Louis Vauxcelles called them fauves (wild beasts), a term later applied to the artists themselves.

Until that summer Matisse had experimented with a variety of styles. In 1891 he had set out for Paris from Saint-Quentin in the north of France, supported by a small allowance from his reluctant father. Over the next fourteen years, he had responded most strongly to Cézanne's simplification of pictorial structure and space through color alone, as well as to the brilliant hues and flat, decorative patterns found in Gauguin's work. Matisse integrated these elements with his own Fauvist discoveries in this small still life, painted in Collioure. The pottery is typical of the region, and the vegetables look as if they have just tumbled out of a shopping basket after a trip from the local market.