Robert van 't Hoff which he christened "De Stijl" and in which he and his wife lived shortly after their marriage in July. This was conceived as an attempt to "further the new direction" and he was involved in every aspect of the interior and exterior design including the furniture and fittings. Van 't Hoff's preference for Bart van der Leck over van Doesburg for the painting of the interior was the first sign of tension between the two, but a commission for van Doesburg from van 't Hoff for a colour scheme for the interior of a house he was designing for the
Jan van der Heyden life elements, has been identified as an important influence on this composition. In particular, like in Dou's composition, van der Heyden's still life scene depicts a wide range of objects of an artistic as well as a scientific nature. These objects reference the passion of contemporary scholars for putting together collections of miscellaneous objects. The objects in van der Heyden's "Still Life with Globe, Books, Sculpture, and Other Objects" were apparently selected to evoke the two intellectual attributes of the active and contemplative life. The contemplative life is the life of art, philosophy and theology while the active life is