From 1892-8, Munnings worked as an apprentice lithographer at Page Bros. & Co. Ltd. in Norwich. He often designed posters for A.J. Caley & Sons of Norwich who manufactured crackers and Caley's Chocolates. These posters were particularly popular and resulted in a gold and silver medal at the Crystal Palace Poster Academy in 1899. The present work is a study for the design for Caley's Chocolates which won the silver medal award; the design for Caley's Crackers won the gold medal

Munnings used his cousin May as a model: 'Then I started again, on large poster designs of lovely girls in large hats, for Caley's Chocolates. My models were a dark-eyed, attractive cousin and a friend, who came to stay. The cousin had beautiful arms and black hair, and was a flirt' (A. Munnings, An Artist's Life, Suffolk, 1950, p.103)