Allan Ramsay made his first journey to Italy from 1736 -1738, spending a month in Paris, visiting Florence, and studying in Rome and Naples. In July 1754, he embarked on his second trip to Rome, accompanied by his wife, Margaret Lindsay. The tour lasted for almost three years. In 1757, Ramsay sketched the painting by Rubens known as The Honeysuckle Bower which was then in Dusseldorf. The couple are Rubens and his first wife, Isabella Brant, painted around the time of their marriage, in 1609.