Although Boughton was born in Norfolk, England, his parents emigrated with him to America when he was only two years old. Apparently self-taught, he became a painter of landscape and American history in Albany, New York. Eventually, in the late 1850s, he returned to Europe and, in 1861, opened a studio in London. In the 1890s, Boughton was a frequent visitor to the home of fellow American painter Francis Bissell in Broadway, Worcestershire, with fellow Americans Henry James, Edwin Abbey, and John Singer Sargent. Open and engaging, Boughton moved easily in society, and painted fashionable women in soft, subdued, and harmonious colours, often in winter. This is a late painting and probably depicts a favourite model, Olive Hood, the actress.