Painted shortly after Léger's return to Paris from his wartime sojourn in New York,Nature morte au papillon encapsulates Léger's emphasis on the key role of pure color in his paintings. The composition and subject recall Léger's output from the late 1930s, the last time when he was permanently settled in Paris, during which he painted a number of still lifes using images of the natural world, such as butterflies, flowers and underwater plants.

The sharply outlined geometric forms provide contrast to the wide sweeps of color, suggesting a sense of movement throughout the composition. Rather than depict a narrative or imitating nature, Léger was concerned with the primacy of painting and explored his visual language in its fullest and purest form, namely the elements of color and form. In 1950, Léger wrote: "The plastic life, the picture, is made up of harmonious relationships among volumes, lines and colors. These are the three forces that must govern works of art. If, in organizing these three elements harmoniously, one finds that objects, elements of reality, can enter into the composition, it may be better and may give the work more richness" (quoted in Carolyn Lanchner, Fernand Léger, New York, 1998, p. 247).