Fujita Tsuguharu painted this still life in 1939 to 1940, just before returning to Japan as World War II was intensifying. The foodstuffs on the table have religious implications, and the work shows the influence of traditional Western still lifes. The bird in flight and the cat after its prey, however, add dynamic elements. The black background, moreover, is less a Baroque expression of light and shade than a means of emphasizing the flatness of the picture plane. The cat in the righthand corner appears frequently in Fujita’s works; could it be his alter ego?