Picasso first became interested in making linoleum cuts, following his meeting with the master printer, Hildago Arnéra, because the technique appeared to him well suited to the execution of graphic posters.
Once he began to visualize significant multicolor compositions in linoleum cut, the medium became more central to his expression, succeeding in printmaking his work in lithography, which had reached a peak of virtuosity in his 1958–59 portraits of Jacqueline, but which had become frustrating for him to work on by long-distance correspondence with his lithographic printer in Paris, Mourlot.
In his linoleum cuts, as in other mediums, what appealed to Picasso was the exploration and extension of the limits of the technique, and the pleasure of retaining, in visual form, the evolution of a work of art as it developed through the stimulating interplay between concept and means of realization.
«Picasso worked for part of the night. Marcel, the driver, brought the works with annotations by Jacqueline Roque to the print shop. I prepared the proof copies and at precisely 1:30 pm, I took them to La Californie. That regular pace of work continued for eight years, every day except Saturdays and Sundays. Once Picasso had given his approval, the proof could be printed on the following day. The subsequent colour could then be printed two or three days later. In the meantime, Picasso worked on other compositions.» as Hidalgo Arnica, printer of Picasso’s linocuts, explains.
This is the most elaborate and ambitious of the color linoleum cuts created by Picasso in the "reductive" technique of cutting and printing, which he devised in collaboration with Hildago Arnéra.

Two blocks were used: a background block (which is eventually printed in the final work in "flannel" grey) evokes the semi-darkness of the room, while the principal block, printed first in black, is carved progressively again and again and printed at each stage (or "state") in a new color on top of those already printed - first yellow, then green, red and blue.
Finally, having reduced the "reserved" or uncut printing surface of the block to a few skeletal lines, which accent the contours of the still life, Picasso printed this last state in black on top all the other layers of color, compelling this nocturne with the deep black which also served as its foundation, giving depth to all the layers of color in between.
The entire process had taken him two full months (March 22 - May 21, 1962) of careful calculation and bold attack, culminating in a powerful composition, with arabesques of shadow and light giving jewel-like presence to the fruit and glass of the still life, and making of the humble hanging lamp an icon which illuminates our appreciation of Contemporary and Pop Art images (such as Jasper Johns "Light Bulb")