Pressman evokes the lost world of Eastern European Jewry in this nostalgic Passover scene. Among the highly stylized group gathered for the ritual meal, the matriarch wears a typical Polish kerchief and the men are dressed in long black coats, the everyday costume of Polish Jews. Inscribed in Hebrew is the chant for the Haggadah, read during the Seder: "Next year in Jerusalem."
Born in Galicia, Meichel Pressman came to the United States around the turn of the century and worked as a pants presser. At the age of eighty-four, retired and in poor health, he found a box of crayons in his house and started to draw, choosing his themes from the bible and from childhood memories.