The artist supply shop Morin et Janet, whose stamp appears on the stretcher of Gris's Pears and Grapes on a Table (1913) was located at 5, rue Lepic, in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris. The shop, initially run by Eugène Morin, was just a five-minute walk from the Bateau-Lavoir (13, rue Ravignan), the cluster of artists' studios that was for a time home to both Gris and Picasso. The two artists frequented the shop; for example, it is known that on April 4, 1911, Picasso purchased fourteen oval canvases of varying dimensions from "Morin."

In 1909, Morin and J. Janet filed a patent (no. 412265) for a new red color they were jointly developing. Their synthetic pigment, consisting of a mixture of cadmium sulfide and selenium, was announced in Le Moniteur Scientifique du Docteur Quesneville in 1912.