Landau’s ‘Interior’ was most probably painted in the south of France, around Saint-Tropez, where he lived during the 1930s and 1940s, as indicated by the traditional, tiled floor and the glimpse into a further room with a small array of still-life objects on a table including a small statue of Mary, indicating that his sitter is probably Catholic. The warm, rustic palette of soft oranges, yellows, greens and browns, coupled with the earthy, opaque quality of the paint evoke the colours and textures of the local landscape.

The typically modernist, flattened space and simplified female figure at the centre of the composition is reminiscent of the work of Bloomsbury artists such as Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. Landau shared a flat in St Tropez with Fry who championed his work.