Gray was a landscape and sporting painter who exhibited at the British Institution, the R.A., Suffolk Street and elsewhere. The present picture was painted at a time when the Pre-Raphaelites were gaining many adherents, and seems to show their influence in its intensity of mood and handling. John Austen Fitzgerald's 'robin' subjects - Cock Robin defending his Nest and Who killed Cock Robin?, both dating from c.1858-68 (private collection) - come to mind by way of comparison.