Why did Henry Moore accept the commission for Madonna and Child at St. Matthew’s Church in Northampton?

Henry Moore accepted the commission for the Madonna and Child at St. Matthew’s Church in 1943 primarily because he was drawn to the possibility of reviving the great tradition of religious art.1

In approaching this work, Moore sought to imbue his figures with a sense of austerity, nobility, and grandeur—qualities he felt were often absent from the conventional, everyday depictions of the mother-and-child theme.1