Louis Marcoussis (1878-1941) was affiliated with the Cubist movement, but like many of his peers worked in a style that moved freely between Cubism and Surrealism. He was a close friend of the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who was, as Apollinaire's biographer Oliver Bernard points out, 'the first writer to understand what the Cubists were up to'. His illustrations of Apollinaire's collected works, Alcools, were made after Apollinaire's death, a tribute to the memory of his friend. This image illustrates a silent farewell to a beautiful woman, whom the poet never met, but followed through the streets for two hours until she disappeared into a house.