‘Draped Seated Mother and Child on Ground’ is a fine example of Moore’s interest in capturing the relationship between mother and child. For Moore the mother and child was ‘one of my two or three obsessions, one of my inexhaustible subjects…(it) is eternal and unending.’ From the Second World War onwards, the relationship between parent and child took a potent new meaning for the artist, becoming a defiant symbol of love, protection and essential humanity. The portrayal of this intimate relationship was also deeply personal for the artist. Throughout the first ten years of his marriage, Moore and his wife Irina struggled to have a child, until 1946 with the birth of their daughter Mary.

‘Draped Seated Mother and Child on Ground’ is a graceful reimagining of this crucial motif in in Moore’s oeuvre. Stylistically it allowed for Moore to experiment with the relationship between large and small forms, while thematically working with notions of intimacy and regeneration. Here, the bodies are reduced to their elemental shapes in an embrace of modern abstraction that disrupts the traditional repose of the seated Madonna and Child.

However, Moore does also apply elements of classicism in ‘Draped Seated Mother and Child on Ground’. In 1951 Moore and Irina visited Greece, travelling to Athens and the archaeological sites at Delphi, Olympia and Mycenae. Moore was fascinated by the drapery of Hellenistic sculpture, which often hangs close to the body to define form. In ‘Draped Seated Mother and Child on Ground’ Moore implements this in the figure of the woman, creating a sense of movement and grandeur through the fabric.

Another edition of this ‘Draped Seated Mother and Child on Ground’ is in the collections of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.