Needlework was often taught by widows or younger women before they married, but sometimes such teaching was a family affair. Elizabeth Folwell operated an embroidery school before her children were born. The patterns for her embroidered pictures were drawn and painted by her husband, Samuel, an artist and engraver. Their son Godfrey must have shown early artistic promise, as he began drawing some of the same patterns after the death of his father in 1813, when he was 14 years old and his mother resumed teaching to support the family. Both father and son drew patterns for other teachers as well. The girl who worked this picture has not been positively identified but might be Eulalia M. Keatting, the daughter of a wealthy landowner.