The background scene identifies the College through the 200-year-old Wadham beech tree and a night sky to convey the last scene from 'The Marriage of Figaro', with the Countess and Figaro illuminated by stage footlights (this refers to Lord Moser's favourite opera and the Royal Opera House of which he was chairman). The sitter came to London from Berlin in 1936. He was a statistician then Chair in Social Statistics at the London School of Economics. He was Director of the Central Statistical Office from 1967 to 1978. He was Director of Rothschilds from 1978 to 1990; Chairman of the Royal Opera House and the British Museum Development Trust; President, Royal Statistical Society and Chancellor, Keele University and Open University of Israel. He was knighted in 1973, and given life peerage in 2001.