Baumeister was especially attached to the ancient Orient. The pieces of his collection meant a great deal to him and his interest in this cultural region was immense, especially in the thirties when he enthusiastically read the field reports of archeologist C. Leonard Woolley, such as Ur und die Sintflut (Ur and the Flood, 1930) and Vor 5000 Jahren (5000 Years Ago, ca. 1930). The harp motif in some of his works from around 1945 is derived from the lyres of Ur.
The incised figurative depictions on cylinder and stamp seals and the uniformly structured surfaces of the small ancient Assyrian cuneiform-script tablets made of clay in Baumeister's collection inspired him to make paintings such as Structural of 1942 or Remnants of Memory of 1944.