The 'Sweet Waters of Asia' was the name given by Europeans in late Ottoman times to two streams, the Göksu and the Küçüksu, which flowed into the Bosphorus near the Anadolu Hisari (Castle of Asia). The meadow in between became a favourite resort for the fashionable elite of Ottoman and European society. Here came the women and children in their brightly painted arabas (ox-drawn carriages) and the men on horseback, to picnic, smoke, chat, wander, and while away the hours in a peaceful environment, away from the turmoil of the city. It was a picturesque scene that few European artists could resist, the natural beauty of the landscape offset by the artifice of the little late baroque fountain of Mihrisah Sultan, mother of Selim Ill, on the shore.

This is one of four similarly picturesque views by Purser of Constantinople and its environs, in the Searight Collection. Purser was probably there sometime during the 1820s and 1830s, but under what circumstances is not recorded.