“La maison rouge” is strongly reminiscent of a painting made by Chagall four years prior, “Obsession” (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes) in which, on a canvas painted almost entirely in red, a woman and a child curled up together float above a wooden house. “Obsession” was resolutely inspired by the war raging on at the time: the house and a village in the distance were set ablaze, a woman attempted to flee with her child in a horse-drawn cart. A calmer yet wistful feeling emanates from “La maison rouge”: the mother and the child look at peace, and the goat in their garden stands as a symbol of love and serenity. Painted only a year after his return from the United States, three after the death of his wife Bella, the work seems to draw from the troubled period Chagall went through, and offer a soothing conclusion to it.