Henrietta Ward painted historical scenes, often of children. Here, she imagined the precocious poet and forger Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) writing in the attic of a house near St Mary Redcliffe. He is stopping his mother picking up the parchment on which he had been writing 'medieval' poetry. Ward used one of her sons for her model. John Everett Millais admired the painting and added the tail of the kitten before it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1873.