¶William Collins, 1788-1847, father of the novelist William Wilkie Collins, was a highly popular landscape and genre painter. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1820. In the Autumn of 1836 Collins left Britain for Italy and remained there, immersing himself in study, until 1838. On his return to Britain he began a series of paintings depicting Italian life and it is likely that this striking image was created during this period.