Schreiber, née Morrell, second cousin of Sir Isaac Brock, the hero of the War of 1812, was born in Colchester, Essex, England.

[1] She also studied anatomy and acquired a great understanding and appreciation for the human form: she wrote in 1895, "The human hand, the finger nail, the foot, every portion of the living body, the parts of a flower, are divinely beautiful … it is a joy to paint them as they are in reality".

[1] Equipped with this training, Schreiber achieved professional success early in her career, exhibiting at the Royal Academy at the age of 21 and receiving commissions to illustrate several books, Edmund Spenser's Legend of the Knight of the Red Crosse or of Holinesse (1871) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Rhyme of the Duchess May (1873), both published by Sampson Low, Son & Marston in London.

[5] In 1880, Schreiber became the first woman elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts,[1] which had been strictly and exclusively male until then.

Schreiber's painting shows the youth on his knees, earnestly addressing the cloaked captain, whose uniform is visible to the viewer but not to the penitent.

The two figures are united by the red in their clothing, but the captain occupies the shadowy portion of the canvas, with the youth on the lighter side.