Ehret was one of the greatest botanical illustrators working in the 18th century. He supplied illustrations for a number of important botanical publications. He was also closely involved in publicising and promoting the binomial system of plant classification that was devised by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus.

Ehret painted this plant study in the 1740s, at the height of his mature style. We do not know the precise date, but a near identical version is dated 1745. In the text Ehret notes that ‘this lily first flowered in August 1738’, in the garden of Peter Collinson. Collinson was an avid collector of new plants, and lived just outside London. Ehret often studied plants in his collection. Dr C. J. Trew reproduced a version of this picture in his book Plantae Selectae, which he published in Nuremberg between 1750 and 1773.