Old map

A boy in a red coat, ruffled white shirt and black bicorne hat leans over a large unfolded map spread on a table, pointing with a wooden spyglass and gesturing with his other hand. A red and blue macaw perches on a rope beside him, and a small still life of a glass, an apple, coins and a folded cloth sits at the table's edge. The background breaks into flat, angular shapes of blue, red and dark grey suggesting the corner of a ship's cabin and a window.

Warm reds and golds in the boy's coat and the map's parchment stand against the cool, geometric blocks of the background, giving the picture a bold, playful contrast of color. Modeling on the face and hands is smooth and rounded in an academic manner, while the setting behind him is simplified into decorative flat panels rather than a realistic room, lending the scene a lighthearted, adventurous storybook character.