Kathleen Newton (1854-1882) was the beautiful, divorced, Irish girl who became Tissot's mistress in 1876, six years after he had settled in London as a refugee from the Franco-Prussian War. She was to share his house in St John's Wood until her death from consumption in November 1882, at the age of twenty-eight, an event which shattered Tissot and made him return permanently to Paris.

In this oil sketch, possibly made from life, she is seen in the garden of the house in Grove End Road, presumably with the son she had by either Tissot or a previous lover. Michael Wentworth (loc.cit.) describes the work as 'reminiscent of ... Manet', although he also stresses the 'gulf between Tissot and advanced painting' of the day as represented by Manet, Monet or Degas.