In his first two years in Davos, 1917 and 1918, Kirchner created no fewer than fourteen still lifes. Stylistically, the ‘Still Life with Jugs and Candle’ really cannot be categorised in the series of these still lifes of a still vigorous Expressionism. On the other hand, with its serene forms and curved contours, with its folded changes in perspective and flat, dissonant colour fields, it fits seamlessly into the paintings of 1927.

Three vessels of strong red, two jugs, one filled, and a bowl with some fruit, surround a blue candlestick with a white candle, on an ochre-coloured tabletop in front of a similarly coloured wood, perhaps already carved, and a wall corner in various dark shades of blue. The colours are often intermixed with white, even in the brushstroke signature at the bottom left, which Kirchner made with the lighter blue with which he outlined the candlestick.

A programmatic work in which the volumes - because that is what the objects of a still life are all about - are projected onto the surface. The later ‘New Style’ is heralded.