Alexander Robertson links this picture with Snowbound sold in these Rooms, 25 March 1994, lot 52. Both are half-length female figures painted in the early 1880s and both have a Tissot-like background of chestnut leaves. In the present picture, Robertson observes, there is 'even a suggestion of Renoir, with the tightly handled forms and enamel-like surface of the flesh areas.'

It has been suggested that the sitter is Miss Agnes Leefe, an actress at the Grand Theatre, who was to move to Knostrop Hall in the early 1880s, as the artist's model and studio assistant. According to Alex Robertson 'there was no suggestion of impropriety: in fact, Miss Leefe became a companion both to the children and to Mrs Grimshaw.'