The painting depicts Ella Glückstadt (1899–1986) standing on the ladder and one of her brothers standing next to her, either Erik (née 1896) or Hans Jørgen (née 1902) in the garden of the family's summer residence in Skodsborg, North Zealand. The mother of the two children, Julie Emilie Rée (1875–1952), who was married to merchant and general consul Valdemar Glückstadt (1868–1948), was a friend of Bertha Dorph. Ella was later married to the earl, Erik Gebhardt Oskar Frederik Moltke, and took his family name.

Provenance: Elna Glückstadt, thence by descent.

Bertha Green trained as a painter at private painting schools in the 1890s at, among others Georg Seligmann, Peter Ilsted and Harald Slott-Møller. Then, like many of the other female painters at her time, she went abroad to further her education. She spent a year in Berlin, where she learned to engrave at the Schinkel Academy and made her debut under her maiden name Green at Den Frie Udstilling ( the Free Exhibition) in 1899. In 1900 she married the painter Niels Vinding Dorph (1862–1931) and was henceforth known as Bertha Dorph. She continued her education both at home and in Italy, France and England. In 1916 she was a co-founder of, and sat on the board of the Society of Female Artists (Kvindelige Kunstneres Samfund). In 1928 she became chairman of the School for Drawing and Applied Art for Women (Tegne- og Kunstindustriskolen for Kvinder), which had been established in 1876.