William Henry Howe was born in Ohio and lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan and St. Louis, Missouri, working as a merchant before he began his career in art. He enrolled at the Royal Academy at Dusseldorf in 1880, but left Germany for Paris a year later to pursue the study of animal painting under Otto de Thoren (1828-1889) and Felix du Vuillefroy (1841-1910). He was exhibited and honored with awards both in Paris and America as a student, and was elected as an associate to the National Academy of Design upon his return to New York in 1893. In 1897 he was made an Academician. The artist settled with his wife in Bronxville, New York, which attracted many like-minded artists due to its charm and proximity to New York City. With the influx of new residents came a change in the topography of the land, and Howe decided to venture out to locales such as Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, Dover Plains, New York, and Old Lyme, Connecticut to seek the fields and barnyards he desired to use as subject matter. Howe was one of the first artists to follow Henry Ward Ranger to Old Lyme in 1900, and stayed at Florence Griswold’s boardinghouse periodically during the two decades following his initial visit. His interest in pastoral subjects and tendency to paint in the stylistic traditions of the French Barbizon and Dutch lowlands made Old Lyme an attractive destination for the seasoned painter.