The painting Autumn, now in a private collection, was the companion to Spring. The paintings were commissioned in 1863 by Dundee textile manufacturer GB Simpson. McTaggart discussed the pictures in a letter to him, and gave the following description of Autumn; ‘The children have been in the fields gleaning and bramble gathering, and the granny sitting outside from the cottage is being shown what they have got.... I should like to have a figure in the autumn of life and some children returned from gathering brambles meeting. I could have part of the cottage exterior, and an autumnal landscape background’. The theme is of childish innocence contrasted with the sadness of adult experience.