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John Atkinson Grimshaw was influenced by John Ruskin and the meticulous work of the Pre-Raphaelites early in his career and began producing these small autumnal scenes in the 1870s. This example is typical in its use of a solitary female figure walking down a deserted road at dusk, and these evocative subjects proved extremely popular with his middle-class clientele. The settings were often based on the walled streets on the outskirts of his native Leeds, or elsewhere in Yorkshire, where he lived until the mid-1880s. Many of these canvases date to the 1880s, when Grimshaw was facing a severe financial crisis that compelled him to substantially increase his productivity and make numerous repetitions and variations (as many as fifty a year). By 1885 he had moved to Chelsea and was increasingly influenced by the approach of James McNeill Whistler and his associates in the aesthetic movement.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016