In the late nineteenth century, attempts were made to challenge what had become a formulaic representation of the Highlands produced by the art establishment. The so-called Glasgow Boys, including John Lavery, James Paterson and Edward Arthur Walton, focused on non-Highland subject matter and locations, and introduced innovations in technique, colour and composition. Their artistic influence came from French artists, such as Jean-François Millet and Jules Bastien-Lepage.

Walton's painting is a bold and unsentimental representation of contemporary rural life, in every sense a rebuttal to Gourlay Steell's A Highland Parting, which is shown in this room.