Cecil Collins (1908-1989) worked both as a painter and designer. He studied at the Plymouth School of art between 1923 and 1927 and the Royal College of Art, London from 1927-1931. In the early 1930s the artist became exposed to the work of artists Picasso (1881-1973) and Klee (1879-1940). In 1936 he participated in the International Surrealist Exhibition, London, before moving away from the movement. The artist returned to his native Devon to teach at Dartington Hall from 1939 to 1943. He believed in art being created through visionary experience and spiritual quest and his works from the 1940s echo the mystical feel of the artists Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) and Odilon Redon (1840-1916).

This pencil drawing is for one of 12 illustrations that Cecil Collins made for the Oxford illustrated Old Testament, published in 1968. The five volumes were illustrated with the work of twenty two contemporary British artists including David Hockney (born 1937), Peter Blake (born 1932), Carol Annand and Sheila Robinson as well as Collins.This work is an illustration to Chapter 9 of the 'Wisdom of Solomon' from The Apocrypha. Showing a woman above a line of men with the pyramids in the background, the illustration accompanies the lines 'She delivered the righteous people and blameless seed from the nation that oppressed them.'