In 1947 Sutherland visited the Picasso Museum at Antibes. This visit inspired a landscape which paraphrased Pastorale, and the present work. Sutherland had admitted in an interview with Edward Sackville-West that Picasso was the principal influence on the development of his art (New Statesman, March 1945)
(see R. Berthoud, Graham Sutherland A Biography, London, 1982, p.119)