This is one of the earliest of Mondrian's so-called 'tram-line' paintings. Before 1932 he had used single lines but he began pairing them in order to achieve a sense of optical movement. He also began to extend the coloured areas over the edge of the canvas. In this painting, Mondrian created a perfect balance between the colour and the horizontal and vertical lines, so that no one element dominated. He painted with great precision, although he did so intuitively by trial and error, not through mathematical calculation. This painting formerly belonged to the artist Winifred Nicholson, who acquired it directly from Mondrian.