The picture still betrays the influence of D.G. Rossetti, with whom Prinsep was associated during the painting of the Oxford Union murals in 1857-8. This is overlaid, however; with the French academic style which Prinsep absorbed a year or two later when studying under Gleyre in Paris, where he formed one of the 'Paris Gang' subsequently immortalised by George Du Maurier in Trilby. The Art Journal seems to have detected another influence. '"Attitude", says the proverb, "is everything", and so thought Mr Prinsep evidently when he threw this figure into pose. The painting of the flesh certainly has not too much delicacy. The best, perhaps, that can be said of the picture is that it recalls the style of Mr Millais'. Many of the accessories - furniture, metalwork, tiles, etc - are interesting examples of early 'aesthetic' taste.

The subject would appear to be taken from Persian or Arabian literature, which was much admired in Rossetti's circle and perhaps had a special interest for Prinsep with his family connections with the East (see lot 10). However, unlike Rossetti's watercolour Golden Water (1858; Fitzwilliam Museum), the picture does not seem to illustrate the Arabian Nights ('The Story of the Husband and the Parrot' is surely not relevant), or any other of the obvious sources. It is possible that the title is infact made up.