In this print—based on a painting of the same title (now in the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada)—Tissot stages a scene of leisurely recreation in his garden in St. John's Wood in London, identifiable by the distinctive colonnade surrounding the fountain in the background.
Born in France, Tissot was an anglophile, even changing his birth name Jacques-Joseph to the more English - James. The influx of Japanese prints and the innovation of photography influenced Tissot along with the most avant-garde artists of Paris; but unlike the Impressionists, Tissot insisted on an Academic finish to his works, which found a place in the Salons of Paris and London.
In 1880, Tissot became a charter member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, founded by Seymour Haden for artists who produced their own prints of their paintings, and he began exhibiting his prints regularly in England and Scotland through the end of the decade.
