This technical study helps to explain how Pablo Picasso made one of his earliest cubist constructions, Still Life 1914 (fig.1),1 what his intentions were and how he achieved them, and how the work has changed with time. Conservators have published technical studies on Picasso’s paintings,2 but less attention has been paid to his early sculptures. This article suggests ways in which Picasso controlled his materials to emphasise the basic, almost crude, effect he sought. The artist’s failure or refusal to efface evidence of the way the work came into being gives the impression of hasty or rough workmanship, and at the time Still Life was made, this was unusual, even shocking, in a serious work of art.