[2] The combination of an industrial rock drill and the carved plaster figure makes the artwork an example of a "Readymade" created at the same time as Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel (1913).

[9] When he exhibited the radically transformed Torso in Metal from Rock Drill in 1916, he had evidently turned his back on his 'experimental pre-war days of 1913'.

[6] In contrast to the power and virility exuded by the full-figure, the truncated version appears defenceless and melancholic, evocative of the wounded soldiers who were returning home from the trenches in startling numbers.

Epstein's dismantling of Rock Drill and truncation of the abstracted male form marks a crucial turning point in his career, signalling the end of his engagement with the machine age.

'[9] Epstein had a long and successful career in Britain, working in less radical styles, and notable for portrait busts and architectural sculptures.