The Herschel family owned a house (often called 'Observatory House') in Slough, Berkshire from the late 18th century through to 1958 when it was torn down. After the family came back from South Africa in 1838, they rented out this house, and lived in a house called Collingwood near Hawkhurst in Kent (near the Sussex boarder). As adults, in the 1870s 1880s some of the unmarried and widowed Herschel siblings moved back to Observatory house. While Matida Rose was not one of the siblings to return, she would have visited. It would seem likely that this drawing was produced during one of those visits. It is signed by the artist.

Rose, as she was known to the family, was John and Margaret's 10th child. This is one of a series of drawings she, alongside her brothers and sisters, would have done as part of her artistic education. The Herschel daughters, and the sons before they went away to school, recieved a very intensive education at home with lessons from their mother, their father, a series of governesses and a number of specialist outside tutors. Rose spent much of her adult life in India looking after her brothers William and John and later marrying a friend of her brother's William Waterfield.