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Oil on canvas. Signed lower left: “19/ VIKTOR/ STRETTI/ 38”. Still lifes in which painter's supplies are shown alongside opulent bouquets appear in several other paintings by Viktor Stretti. Here, however, the picture seems to be treated as a photograph. The image captures a cigarette still burning in the ashtray and a number of other objects from the studio. A popular printmaker, painter and illustrator from a famous family of goldsmiths and the Baroque painter Jan Quirin Jahn, Stretti spent his childhood at the Cistercian monastery in Plasy and studied art initially at the School of Applied Arts, and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Professor František Ženíšek. In 1898 he traveled to Munich as a trainee and learned engraving and other printmaking techniques. He focused on medal making, etchings and mezzotints. Stretti specialized in Prague scenes and painted the portraits of a number of important figures President Masaryk, Graf von Thun, sculptor Josef Drahoňovský and others.