Winifred Nicholson, born Rosa Winifred Roberts – she married the painter Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) in 1920, was a celebrated British artist known for her still-life and landscape paintings and above all for her exuberant sense of colour.

This painting was inspired by the Minoan civilisation on the island of Crete. Nicholson visited Greece regularly throughout the 1960s, often in the company of her daughter Kate. A number of works produced in this period and exhibited at the Redfern Gallery depict the country's landscape and mythology.

Nicholson’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, the record price being 330,188 USD for Over the Sea to Eigg sold at Christie’s in 2007.