In 1909, Zadkine moved to Paris, where he encountered Cubism and other avant-garde movements as he developed a sculptural world in his own abstract style, tempered with primitive and folk qualities. In this work with the traditional theme of mother and child, the form seems cut out in relief from behind; the simplified face has a quaintly artless appeal. In it, we can see Zadkine’s admiration for archaic Greek art. At the same time, in the continuous surface from head to legs and its unevenness we can see similarities to the work of the Constructivists, a movement also then active, with Archipenko as its leading figure.