This atmospheric drawing is an exact replica of two identical drawings made two years earlier, and was presumably a commission. The dark grain of the chalk on the paper gives the drawing an overall unity, while the artist has carefully balanced areas of light and shade around the focal point of the crossed needles. Largely self-taught, Bonvin specialized in still-life and scenes of everyday life, inspired by Dutch seventeenth-century art. He was a friend of the French painter Gustave Courbet, who encouraged him to join the Realist movement.