Chagall imported much of his visual lexicon from his native Belarus, and his paintings from this period represent a convergence of Russian iconography with the new impetus of the Fauve colours, Cubist style and Old Master pictures, particularly the Cubists who had taken the Parisian art world by storm at almost the same moment Chagall had arrived in the city.

Chagall now viewed both the history and the contemporary situation of French art, coming to know intimately the pictures in the Louvre as well as in the galleries of some of the legendary dealers of the period, such as Bernheim-Jeune. He saw the works of past masters such as Cézanne and Van Gogh and took lessons from each, as can be seen in the form and composition of this still life, reminiscent of Cézanne in spots of colour with which he has rendered the fruit.

Nature Morte is one of only two still-life works created during this golden age of Modern painting in Paris before 1914 and represents a conflux of major influences distilled into a style that became the artist's unmistakable signature. The present painting bears witness to the widespread artistic influences that Chagall absorbed during these seminal years. In reference to Nature morte and the other still-life work from this time, Franz Meyer, venerable art historian and Chagall's biographer and son-in-law, remarked, "They square with Chagall’s determination to penetrate…into the heart of French painting and to come to grips with the spirit of the Western tradition," (Marc Chagall, Life and Work, 1963).