Throughout her life, Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann was concerned with social inequality and injustice, and she thus depicted the harsh conditions of life of poor people in several works. In the 1860s and early 1870s, she found models for her depictions of orphans among the children at the orphanage 'The Foundling Hospital' in London. During her stays in Italy, where she traveled to several times, she also painted beggars and miserable children on the street with great empathy and compassion.