The Lemon Seller by Aris Raissis depicts an elderly market trader seated behind a wide cloth sack heaped with lemons, many ripened to deep yellow while others remain green. Figure and produce emerge from a dark, near-black ground under a single frontal light, which falls across the face, the folds of the shirt and the skins of the lemons. Raissis works the flesh and fabric in closely blended oil, while the lemons are built up in thicker, granular paint that holds the light. The canvas is signed by the artist lower right.

Born in Cairo in 1962 to Greek parents, Aris Raissis trained at the Chelsea School of Fine Art and the Byam Shaw School of Fine Art in London, concentrating on figurative painting, still life and portraiture. His portrait commissions include a likeness of HRH Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, unveiled at Claridge's in 1995. The Lemon Seller sits within Raissis' body of figurative oil paintings, in which everyday Mediterranean and Middle Eastern subjects are treated with the techniques of historical European painting.