The title is from Exodus 2:5 ('flags' meant rushes). This picture and its companion The Birth of Moses were shown together in Liverpool where they were noticed by the Liverpool Daily Post: 'DW Hawksley's two exquisite little studies of the concealment and discovery of the child Moses (586 and 591) give fresh proof of her perfect colour and decoration.'

In the 1920s, Hawksley evolved a flat, schematic style that was distinctively personal, though strongly influenced by Japanese prints, with lesser debts owed to the early Italian masters (she often referred to 'Mike', or Michelangelo) for composition and to Cayley Robinson for tone (she owned pictures by him) – but the rhythmic colour was all her own. Her subjects were usually women and motherhood, although she was childless.