This painting is, among other things, a souvenir of the friendship between three men; the artist Daniel Maclise, the novelist Charles Dickens and the biographer and man of letters, John Forster. The three had become boon companions in the late 1830s and it was one of the happiest phases in Maclise's life before he fell prey to depression and hypochondria in later years. Maclise sketched the spot which forms the background to this painting, and from which it takes its title, when they were holidaying together in Cornwall in the autumn of 1842. The artist afterwards began a painting using Dickens' sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth as a model. Dickens bought the painting through an intermediary, believing perhaps that if he declared his desire to own it, Maclise would either give it to him or suggest a ridiculously low price. The revelation of this subterfuge was much to Maclise's chagrin.

John Forster purchased the painting from the sale of Dickens' effects after his death and bequeathed it to the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of the Forster collection, which is notable for containing the manuscripts of many of the most celebrated Dickens novels.