Michael Sandle is best recognised as a sculptor but as a student at the Slade School of Art in London he spent most of his time in the etching and lithography studios. In a statement made in 1988 he described how printmaking was a seminal activity for him, significantly affecting his development as an artist and particularly influencing the way he continued to draw.

Sandle was born in the Isle of Man and, after a period of working in the USA and Canada, where the image of Mickey Mouse became a kind of metaphor for American military aggression in his work, he has spent much of his professional life in Germany at the Academy of Art at Karlsruhe. His work addresses the brutality of war, and his representation of weaponry and machinery has been influenced by the early 20th-century Italian Futurist artists. Much of his work has a memorial theme, looking back to various periods of intense international and global conflict.

This piece is not dated but appears to be an early work. Even as a student Sandle was manifestly interested in themes that embraced military activity. The ‘knight’ allows Sandle to explore the possibilities of representing a suit of armour.