Edward Stott was born in Rochdale in 1859 and studied in Paris under Auguste Carolus-Duran and Alexandre Cabanel. While in Paris, he was exposed to the plein air Realism of Jules Bastien-Lepage and Jean-Francois Millet, who specialised in the portrayal of rural life, using a distinctive square brush technique where individual strokes are apparent, thus creating a patchwork effect that was at variance with the fine finish expected of Salon artists at the time.
Anvers sur Oise, 35 kilometres north of Paris, was within easy reach of the city for artists wishing to explore rural subjects and it became a favourite destination for artists; it is now most famously associated with the final days of Van Gogh's life. A favourite motif of the school was the depiction of farmer labourers at work and rest in the fields, painted in a direct and unsentimentalised manner. Upon his return to England, he continued to develop his style and obvious parallels can be drawn between his work of this period and that of Sir George Clausen and Henry Herbert La Thangue, the most famous exponents of the style in England.