Harvey, the son of a Birmingham artist, was a prize-winning student at Birmingham Central School. His silvery pastels were influenced by the Dutch artist Jozef Israëls, who died about the time this was made, and ultimately by Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. 

This picture was probably one of a group Harvey showed at the Birmingham Art Circle, where a reviewer noticed them, in 1910: ‘Herbert Harvey sends eleven works of a very varied character, but all of them manifesting marked originality and strength [...] The contrast of light and shade has quite a suggestion of the Rembrandtesque.’