This painting demonstrates Penrose’s interest in frottage, a technique that was introduced into surrealist art by Max Ernst in 1925. Frottage particularly lent itself to Surrealism as it produced random results, which encouraged the artist to develop the imagery in an inventive manner. Penrose has employed the technique here on the central, circular area that resembles the sun featured in Ernst’s painting, ‘Max Ernst Showing a Young Girl the Head of his Father’. Within this a panelled path leads into the distance, perhaps a portal into another world. Yet the painted texture at the bottom of the canvas and the shell-like object precariously balanced on top of the circular form ground the image in the present.