Pissarro painted very few portraits and these were almost exclusively of members of his own family. He recorded the likenesses of his children throughout his life and drew and painted his eldest son, Lucien, on many occasions. This portrait was probably drawn in 1874, when Lucien was eleven years old. It was at this time that his younger sister, Jeanne, died.

In the portrait Lucien is reading, his head is bent in concentration. A lithograph of the same year shows Lucien with the same look of absorption, but this time from the side, and there he appears to be sketching.

The pastel portrait demonstrates Pissarro's great sensitivity to colour as well as his skill as a draughtsman. He blends subtle tones of brown and pink on the child's face, which in the main is cast in shadows. Greys and browns merge effectively in the background but light illuminates the boy's head from behind catching his left shoulder, picking out the shape of his head and his closely cropped hair.

This portrait of his son reflects Camille's own priorities which he would later pass on to his son in his letters. "Draw, draw, draw," he preached to Lucien. "It is only by drawing often, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character." And "Don't strive for skillful line, strive for simplicity, for the essential lines which give the physiognomy." (R. E. Shikes and P. Harper, Pissarro - His Life and Work, New York, 1980, p. 283-4.)