Renoir painted still lifes throughout his career. Here he delights in playing off the warm yellows and oranges of the fruit against the deep green leaves, and the colder white and blue of the cup and saucer. Each object is described with quick, free, fluid strokes of paint. This tiny oil positively vibrates with warmth and light.

In the last years of Renoir's life, when this work was painted, he was badly afflicted by arthritis and found it easier to work on small canvases like this. This painting once belonged to the collector Maurice Gangnat who at one time owned nearly 160 paintings by Renoir. Gangnat's collection was sold in Paris in June 1925. It was then owned by the Glasgow collector Leonard Gow, before being purchased by another Glasgow collector, William McInnes.