After Dr. Albert C. Bauer of Philadelphia purchased a large group of works by Soutine in the winter of 1922-1925 he was temporarily freed from his former poverty and he returned to Cagnes where he had painted in 1918. The influence of the rapid swerving style he mastered in Cagnes is evident in the portraits he painted immediately following his return to Paris. Monroe Wheeler referred to these as showing "disrespectful vigor":

These are speaking likenesses of more or less humble persons whom he invested with the poise of royalty, or of those who think
themselves royal. Who can tell what Soutine thought of them?
Surely he was enthralled by their idiosyncracy. He caricatured
them, but not to amuse himself or to punish them. In the
overpowering prostitutes and judges of Rouault, as in the small
foxy figures of Daumier, there is satiric purpose, indignation
and castigation. But there is nothing of the sort in Soutine.
He has no special grievance against anyone; this is pure
portraiture. He selects the salient features of these persons,
their intensive gaze, outstanding ears, huge interworking hands,
and renders them to excess with only summary indication of the
body which he then cloaks in the magnificences of the palette.
They are unforgettable. (M. Wheeler, Soutine, New York,
1950, p. 65)

To be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow and Klaus Perls.