A workbasket

'A Workbasket' of 1879, held at the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide, demonstrates how Moore's aesthetic programme travelled internationally even during his lifetime, as his works entered collections in Australia through the circuits of the Victorian art market. The workbasket — a domestic accessory associated with female labour — offered Moore a pretext for a still-life element that could be woven into his characteristic arrangement of draped figures in leisure. In Moore's paintings, however, the workbasket typically sits unused or set aside, its presence a reminder of the domestic duties temporarily suspended in favour of the pure aesthetic pleasure Moore sought to depict. The canvas belongs to Moore's productive late 1870s period, when he was exhibiting regularly at the Grosvenor Gallery alongside Whistler and the Aesthetic Movement's other leading figures.

The workbasket introduces a still-life element in warm wicker and thread tones that provide a carefully calibrated contrast to the cool drapery harmonies of the figure. Moore renders the basket with precise descriptive attention while keeping the background and figure in his more abstracted tonal register, creating a graduated movement from specificity to aesthetic generalisation.