Widely regarded as a leading landscape painter, Robert Duncanson was among the first African American artists to achieve international recognition. During the Civil War, he retreated to Canada for two years and then to England and Scotland, where he painted this picture. In the Romantic tradition of the idyll—a scene of rural simplicity—the subject transports viewers to a location of contemplative peace. At the end of the war in 1866, Duncanson abruptly left England for his hometown of Cincinnati.