The drawing was made in 1847 when Millais, aged seventeen, was staying with his Jersey friends the Lemprières at Ewell in Surrey. In later life Arthur Lemprière contributed reminiscences of Millais as a boy to J.G. Millais' Life of his father, including a description of a drawing, now in a private collection, which relates to the present study: 'It was in 1847 that I remember his drawing all the Lemprière family at Ewell standing round a table in the drawing-room, watching eagerly a Twelfth-cake being cut by my eldest sister. It was all so cleverly grouped, and included my father and mother, my five brothers, seven sisters, myself, and himself. It was a picture we all greatly valued, as, in addition to the clever grouping, the likenesses were so excellent' (J.G. Millais, Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, 1899, I, p. 32)