Painted circa 1935, the composition alignes with Des Clayes’ broader body of work depicting pastoral settings and the Canadian countryside. 

Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1877, Des Clayes trained at the Bushey School of Art in London under Hubert von Herkomer and later at the Académie Julian in Paris with Tony Robert-Fleury and Jules Lefebvre. She lived and worked across Scotland, England, France, and Canada, residing in Montreal from 1912 to 1919 and again from 1931 to 1951, with a period in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia in 1922. Deeply engaged in the Canadian art community, she became the first female vice-president of the Art Association of Montreal (now the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) in 1920.

An accomplished impressionistic painter, Des Clayes worked in oil, watercolour, pastel, and chalk, producing portraits, rural landscapes, and harbour scenes. She exhibited widely, including at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the Canadian National Exhibition between 1912 and 1947, and won the Jessie Dow Prize twice. Her work is held in major public collections such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.