Surtees points out that this watercolour was “Possibly originally conceived as the left panel of a triptych...Mary, standing by a stream, plants a lily plant and a rose bush” (Surtees,
The picture was exhibited in May 1857 at the Russell Place Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition, which included seventy-two entries. DGR was one of the twenty-two artists who contributed pictures. For an account of the exhibition see Correspondence
A Catalogue Raisonné