"Embarkation was made by Rego in 1992 for a portfolio published by the Royal College of Art for their Printmaking Appeal. Among the other artists donating to the portfolio were Terry Frost, Tim Mara, Nana Shiomi, Eduardo Paolozzi and John Bellany. Rego believes that it is imbued with the feelings and atmosphere of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. It is also very personal. 'There's Luzia (Rego's nurse) and my child, and they are all going off on the boat. It's got a lot to do with Portugal.' (The ship on the horizon in full sail is a classic Portuguese galleon). The pig 'is a great big creature boxed up. Most of the people one knows one does as animals.'
With a mixture of humans and animals, of land and sea, of objects and utensils jumbled together, but not haphazardly, it is wonderfully evocative. It has also tantalizing echoes of other artists. The relationship of girl and woman remind one of Millais's The Boyhoood of Raleigh (c.1879), and the man's head on its side would not look out of place in the work of Giorgio de Chirico.
As a feat of organization it is exemplary and I believe it to be a masterpice of twentieth-century etching"

Rosenthal, T. G. (2012) Paula Rego: The Complete Graphic Work. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. (76)