Inspired by a photograph Theodore Robinson had taken of this scene circa 1891 (Terra Foundation for the Arts, Chicago, Illinois), the present work likely depicts the Epte River near Giverny. Sona Johnston explains of its inspiration, "The theme of young women in a flat-bottomed skiff may have been suggested by a group of works showing similar subjects painted by Monet in 1887. As in these compositions, the view here is taken from above. Robinson is known to have owned a preparatory drawing for Monet's La barque bleu, 1887, which depicts two of the French artist's stepdaughters, Marthe and Blanche Hoschedé, seated on a small boat on the river. The general demeanor of the models here suggests that they may have been among the Americans who flocked to the summer art colony at Giverny in the 1890s." (In Monet's Light: Theodore Robinson at Giverny, exhibition catalogue, Baltimore, Maryland, 2004, p. 131)

An oil version of the present work, also entitled Two in a Boat (1891), is in The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.