Born in Nantes, Tissot studied in Paris and spent the years 1871-82 in England. He occupies a place in the British 'Modern Life' genre movement, as well as a position on the fringes of French Impressionism. This is one of a series of pictures inspired by eighteenth-century British art, which rearrange costumed models and props before a landscape viewed through a bay window. In 1874 Tissot had such a bay window installed in his London studio.
