This painting is an important late example of Magritte’s work and the largest version of this subject, which he treated on four occasions. Unlike some of the other Surrealists, who believed that the unconscious could express itself through chance and automatic techniques, Magritte planned his paintings with meticulous rigour and executed them with all the trompe l’oeil skills of a traditional painter. The results are surprisingly realistic images of seemingly illogical scenes. Magritte would undermine the logic of illusionism by tampering with scale and perspective and by placing objects in unexpected settings.