Alfred Janes's parents kept a fruit and flower shop in Swansea, and he trained at the School of Art there and at the Royal Academy Schools. He was a friend of Dylan Thomas, and one of the circle that frequented Swansea's Kardomah Café. This painting was painted in Coleherne Road in 1934 and was bought by the museum the following year. At this period Janes used the technique of making a linear incision in the surface with a pen-knife to give the painting a greater formality, and to bring the face into a sharper focus.