Travel was a recurring part of Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick’s artistic practice. Together with her husband, Francis Brooks Chadwick, she undertook painting trips to destinations including the United States, Spain, Italy, England and North Africa. Sources explicitly state that she found new subjects during these journeys, although they do not specify when the journey or journeys to North Africa took place or which locations the couple visited.

The North African subjects can be considered in the context of an artistic practice in which people and their surroundings had long occupied a central position. During her stay in Brittany in 1879, Löwstädt-Chadwick painted scenes from the everyday lives of coastal communities, and her work came to encompass genre scenes, portraits and interiors.