Stephens was one of the seven members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, launched in 1848, but he soon abandoned painting for art criticism and for teaching art at University College School. As a writer he is best known as the art critic of the Athenaeum, a post he held for forty years (1861-1901).

As he practised painting for such a short period and destroyed most of what he did produce, his work is extremely rare; the best-known example is Mother and Child in the Tate Gallery, dating from 1854-6. What is interesting about the present example is that it seems to be an essay in the prevailing 'Venetian style' of the 1860s, suggesting that Stephens continued to paint for longer than is generally recognised.