This painting depicts the landscape of Nightingale Valley, Leigh Woods, Bristol with large trees lining the path. Leigh Woods is a 2-square-kilometre area of woodland on the south-west side of the Avon Gorge, close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, within North Somerset opposite the English city of Bristol and north of the Ashton Court estate, of which it formed a part.

William James Müller (1812-1845) was a British landscape and figure painter, the best-known artist of the Bristol School. A bust of the painter is located at the entrance to the cloister in Bristol Cathedral.