The Picture (French: Le Tableau) is a one-act play written by Eugène Ionesco and first published in Viridis Candela, the journal of the Collège de 'Pataphysique.
Le Gros Monsieur, aka the fat gentleman, is an irresistible, shrewd businessman.
Alice, an old, ugly, and ill woman, is asked by her brother to lend him a hand.
After the painter leaves, the brother-sister relationship is reversed and the meek creature becomes authoritarian and demanding, threatening her brother with her walking-stick.
According to the playwright, only extreme childish simplification can reveal the meaning of this farce, and it can become plausible when it is most improbable and idiotic.