This painting depicts Second Valley on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia.

Born in Bristol, Edmund Gouldsmith studied at the Bristol Government School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools, London. After living in Adelaide for three years, in 1886 he took a part-time position as art master at Christ’s College in Christchurch. Gouldsmith was a working member of the Canterbury Society of Arts in 1887 and exhibited with the Society from 1887 to 1888. He returned to England in 1889. He exhibited with the Royal Academy from 1891 to 1927. Gouldsmith continued sending paintings to Christchurch picture dealer H. Fisher during the 1890s.