In its sweeping curves and bold elisions, this work shows the degree to which Moore had simplified his sculptural language since his first three-piece reclining figures of the early 1960s. As he himself said about the earlier series: 'you do things in which you eliminate something which is perhaps essential, but to learn how essential it is you leave it out. The space then becomes very significant.'

Echoing the forms and rhythms of landscape, the figure contrasts roughly textured areas with smooth, polished ones. The sharply blunted surfaces of the face and torso emphasise the monumentality of the figure as a whole, lending it a tough yet elegant quality.