A wonderful and important example of Marie Vassilieff's work, Still Life with Masks in a Window, showing the clear influence of a number of the avant garde artists in her circle, most notably Modigliani, the Cubist masters Braque and Picasso and the earlier Symbolist painter Odilon Redon. The work is gouache  over  pencil  on  cardboard  with  silver  paint. The composition is strong with deep and vivid colouration.

Vassilieff studied at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, before she left her homeland, Russia and settled in France. On her arrival in Paris in 1905 she enrolled at Matisse's Academy where she became acquainted with many artists and writers who where considered to be the intellectual elite of Paris.

In 1909 she founded her own Académie Vassilieff, which became a popular rendezvous for the most progressive literary and artistic personages in the city. Braque, Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Salmon and Jacob were all habitués. Leger gave a series of lectures there in 1913.

During the years of the Great War, Vassilieff used her Académie as a base for a canteen, which she set up for all the academics and painters in Paris who found themselves in financial difficulties. Her extensive tours to Spain, Romania, Poland and Scandinavia were inspiration for many of her work. Marie Vassilieff was most successful during the period when Cubism reached its peak. In the late 1920's she held a one-man show in London, Italy and the Midi, where she then lived. In Paris she showed her work frequently at the Salon des Indépendants, Salon d'Automne and Salon d'es Tuileries. In 1979 her work was included in a Paris Moscow exhibition held at the Centre George Pompidou, Paris.