Hamed Ewais moved to Cairo in the 1940s to study at the School of Fine Arts and was inspired by modernists such as Picasso, Matisse and the Fauves, most notably finding an affinity with Mexican Social Realists, such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. A founder of the Group of Modern Art in 1947 together with artists like Gamal El-Segini, the group believed that art should touch the masses and reflect social ideologies. This painting is a tender, beautifully rendered composition: a young child being reassured with protective arms during a visit to the zoo; created during an era of the golden age for culture and the rise of a middle class under Gamel Abdel Nasser’s presidency of Egypt.