In 1863 McTaggart received an important commission from the Dundee textile magnate George Buchan Simpson. An amateur artist himself, he furnished his residence at Broughty Ferry with the best of modern Scottish art. Simpson proved a committed but demanding patron and often insisted on changes in design or tonal range, sometimes even after the public exhibition of commissioned works. This highly worked compositional study, which was submitted as a test piece for Simpson’s final approval, differs slightly from the finished picture Spring (1864) in the Gallery’s collection.