It was painted the same year that Clara, Langley's wife and the mother of his four children died of a stroke.

[1] It was painted the same year that Clara, Langley's wife and the mother of his four children died of a stroke.

[4] It was described in the Summer Exhibition's programme notes as a "grey picture, relieved by yellow blanket and bowl of primroses".

[6] A reviewer for London Society felt it was the "lest offensive" of the "avowedly story pictures" and that the elderly woman's "pathetic expression" was "particularly good".

[3] The Art Journal felt that the painting suffered from "a love of mournful subjects" which Langley shared with other Newlyn artists and described the subject as a "golden-haired child sick into death" surrounded by "all the minutely observed paraphernalia of poverty".