Around 1909, after a period of working in the Fauvist style, Braque, together with Picasso, started to draw on the work of Paul Cézanne to develop Cubist painting. Teamed, as he said, with Picasso as if they were alpinists roped together, their friendly competition to establish Cubism was a landmark achievement in the early days of Modernism. Braque and Picasso pioneered the potential of painting after Cézanne. After enlisting in World War I, Braque moved away from Cubism but continued to construct unique pictorial spaces with a strongly tangible sensibility. His principal theme was still lifes on tables. It is believed that Pedestal Table was completed in the spring of 1911 at Braque’s Paris studio after his return from military service in Le Havre. From below, roughly two-thirds of the canvas is taken up by a round table. As if responding to the oblong canvas, the composition is pyramidal, the apex being the bottle at the center. The objects on the table are paints, brushes, and palettes; the large and small cylinders are probably containers used to hold turpentine for painting in oils or containers for washing brushes. The composition is beautifully balanced, but the configuration of geometric cylinders and faceted surfaces does not rely on a reproduction of the external world. Instead, it suggests an interior and autonomous way of painting. It is probably for this reason that the artist’s signature is found on the reverse. On the other hand, the traces of fine brush strokes and the ochre applied to every part of the table evoke a sense of tactility. The work is from the period when Braque’s Analytic Cubism was at its peak. In this period, he explored the tactile potential of space in painting, while rigorously removing all elements of reproduction.