Born in Norwich, England, Boughton went to America as an infant in 1834 settling with his family in Albany, New York. Essentially, selftaught, he focused on landscape painting before traveling abroad in 1860. Following a brief period of study in Paris, he moved to London where his finely rendered narrative compositions became immensely popular with collectors in both England and America. On the reverse of this painting, Lucas wrote a note about the subject “Viola, she never told her love (Shakespeare),” a reference to the heroine in William Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night, who suffered her plight disguised as a male.