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Jankel Adler, born near Łódź in Poland, is considered an exceptional figure in the New Objectivity movement. At the age of 17, he came to Barmen and studied at the School of Applied Arts under Gustav Wiethüchter. Seeking new artistic inspiration, he contacted Franz Wilhelm Seiwert in Cologne and joined the Düsseldorf-based artists' group Das 'Junge Rheinland' (The Young Rhineland).

From 1920 onwards, he regularly spent several months in Berlin. It was there, at the 'Romanisches Café' (Romantic Café), the most important artists' café at the time, that he met the poet Else Lasker-Schüler. Originally from Elberfeld, she had been living in Berlin since her marriage to Herwarth Walden, and the two soon formed a close friendship. To commemorate their first meeting, he painted her leaning against a café table. Rather than emphasising her literary ambitions, Adler depicted her in the Jewish tradition: wearing a high-necked dress, a head covering, and a ring with the symbol of the crescent moon. As the Jewish calendar is based on the lunar cycle, with the month beginning at the new moon, this could signify a new beginning in her life. The austere portrait is set against a flat, interlocking space whose elements – wallpaper patterns, wood grain, and turned-frame mirrors – reveal its proximity to early Cubism. The melancholic, inward gaze probably reflects her life situation at the time, which, after her divorce from Walden, was dominated by a difficult freelance literary career.