Known for her brightly coloured compositions filled with personal content often including familiar still life objects and flowers from her garden, Bendall was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and it has been noted that her work has the air of an artist painting purely for pleasure. This example, as much of her work also does, clearly acknowledges her friend and mentor Matisse, in its colourist sensibilities, likewise her easy handling of both colour and paint alludes to the Scottish Colourists that came before. The advice she gave to her only pupil, Georges Bernède was, ‘think of suggesting space and volume through colour and not simply adding more or less black and white to your tones’, giving an insight into Bendall’s approach to using pure colour as her instrument in painting.