S.W. Hayter re-visited a theme he first attempted in a collaborative print done with Joseph Hecht in 1946 - "La Noyée" - which was done in black and white just using engraving (B&M 173).
Hayter pulled out all the stops to achieve the experimental results he was seeking for "La Noyée", utelizing color engraving, soft-ground etching and scorper; printing the black using intaglio, the orange using a stencil-plate, the green using an offset-stencil-plate, and the violet with a soft roller. He used the soft-ground and fabric to add a net-like texture to the figure and the scorper to gouge out a sinuous white line - the overall effect that of a fishing net with an entrapped figure.
On page 25 in the preface of the catalogue raisonné Desirée Moorhead Hayter states: "La noyée from 1955, a striking and sombre print, combines the imagery of the 1940s with the successful colour experimentation of the 1950s; the bold and flowing treatment of the looped white lines is particularly successful".
There is a light water tide line in the far left margin, well away from image.