Her interest in medieval art was likely influenced by her childhood near Ussel close to the ancient abbey Notre-Dame de Bonnaigue.

[2] Most women artists in the late 19th century were discouraged from working outside the studio by themselves; this social convention limited their range of subjects.

Art historian Laurent Manoeuvre describes one preparatory study for the painting, a drawing in black ink,[β] as being influenced by the style of Ingres.

[9] In all of these works, Bracquemond's half-sister, Louise Quiveron, served as a model for her paintings, an arrangement typical of the limited options available to women artists in 19th-century France, whose freedom to study art was greatly curtailed.

[2] Pierre, Bracquemond's son, described how his mother was obsessed with and studied the color white as it changed in the outdoor sunlight, a common problem for the Impressionists.

[11] According to Pierre, the painting was the last one his mother made in the "classical technique", indicating to art historian Tamar Garb that it was a transitional work from the influence of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875) and the Naturalists to Bracquemond's subsequent Impressionistic style of choice.

[13] The woman appears seated on a carpet outside on the grass with her hands clasped in her lap, forward facing in three-quarter profile to the left.

Marie submitted three paintings, Portrait, L'Hirondelle, and Etude il'apres nature, to the Fifth Impressionist Exhibition [fr], held at the 10 rue des Pyramides from 1–30 April 1880.

[15] Her paintings were shown alongside works by her husband as well as Caillebotte, Degas, Forain, Gauguin, Guillaumin, Lebourg, Levert, Pissarro, Raffaëlli, Rouart, Tillot, Vidal, Vignon, and Zandomeneghi.

Upon hearing this, several hundred people in Cambrai signed a petition to keep the painting and lend it to the Musée d'Orsay temporarily instead, but were unsuccessful.

[20] The exhibition continued to the National Gallery of Ireland, where it was shown under the title Women Impressionists, co-curated by Janet McLean.