Of the two finished watercolours, this is often considered the better. DGR himself
regarded it as “the more finished”
of the two (the other
he said was “the more forcible”
(quoted in A Catalogue Raisonné
This was the first of the versions of the picture that DGR completed (in 1858). He had
begun work on the subject in 1856 when he made a drawing for the watercolour commissioned by Ellen Heaton. But he seems not to have finished the Heaton picture
until the year after this version for Lady Trevelyan. DGR exhibited the
picture at the Hogarth Club in January 1859 (see
Bancroft and Related Pre-Raphaelite Collections
Art of DGR: Watercolors and Drawings
An Illustrated Memorial
DGR: A Record and a Study
A Catalogue Raisonné
A Catalogue Raisonné
Diaries of George Price Boyce