The majority of Turnbull's sculptures of the mid - 1950s are very simplified upright forms of human height standing directly on the ground. This is one of a series of 'Idols' made between 1955-7 where the human figure has been refined and streamlined so that it resembles a spear or leaf shape, sometimes incised with surface marks. The integral base suggests feet and the sculpture possesses an elementary nose and breasts indicating a female figure. This generalised human form evokes sculpture of a much earlier period, for example from ancient Greece or Egypt. There are echoes of the sculpture of Giacometti, whom Turnbull met in the 1940s in Paris.

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