Wood, although more closely associated with the artistic community of St Ives, began his career in the sophisticated circles of Parisian high society. The tension between his ambitions as an artist and the demands of a hedonistic lifestyle, including an addiction to opium, bedevilled him all his life, eventually contributing to his premature death at the age of 29 years. Whilst in Paris in 1921, Wood met his long-time companion, the Chilean diplomat Antonio de Gandarillas. Together they travelled throughout the Mediterranean, where Wood was introduced to Picasso and Cocteau, and began to experiment with a variety of artistic styles. In a letter to his mother from Sicily in May 1922, Wood described a drawing of lemons, which could apply to this painting: "… the tablecloth is all ruffled, crinkled and troubled with dark shadows and ups and downs which suggest to me the world that these lemons live in, everything that is going on around them.