Zhang Qiangying (Chien-ying Chang), was born in Wuxi, and later studied in Nanjing. She assisted the seminal modern artist and art educator Xu Beihong in establishing the China Institute of Fine Arts in Chongching. Under Xu's encouragement, she came to the UK to study Western Painting techniques in 1946, having been awarded a British Council grant. Zhang was admitted to the Slade School of Fine Art. She went on to exhibit widely across the UK, residing in Britain with her husband until she passed away in 2004.

Zhang's works met the admiration of several notable figures, including Mrs Violet Attlee (1895-1966), wife of the prime minister Clement Attlee (1883-1967), and the modern British painter Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959). Her paintings interpreted British life and landscapes through traditional Chinese artistic idioms. She frequently substituted the clothing and topography she encountered in the UK for traditional Chinese costume and landscapes, integrating a personal lyrical sentiment into her work.

Her poem on this painting reads: What weary traveller does not love the green mountains, the only place on earth that merits its reputation? Gazing on the clouds resting atop cliffs and peaks, as the flowing water all returns to the world of men below.