For the exhibition 'Nature's Own Voice' 6 February - August 2009 this work was displayed with the following label:

Rosa Sawtell painted plein-air studies from early in her career and in 1888 was awarded a silver medal for ‘landscape study from nature’ by the Canterbury Society of Arts. During the 1890s Sawtell was a prominent member of Christchurch’s Palette Club, which fostered plein-air painting among local artists. She worked predominantly in watercolours, and continued to develop a looser, more spontaneous, approach throughout the early twentieth century.