Born in El Escorial in Madrid in 1833, Martin Rico y Ortega won a government scholarship as a young artist to travel to Paris, where he was influenced by Charles François Daubigny (1817-1878) and the other artists of the Barbizon School. In 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, the artist returned to his native Spain but other parts of Europe still held great appeal for him, and in 1872 Rico travelled to Italy, making a formative first trip to Venice, which captivated his imagination. Even after his return to Paris in 1879, the artist continued to spend his summers in Venice, renting a palazzo from which he could paint scenes of his beloved city. Rico would often paint en plein air while traveling the canals in a gondola, sketching the buildings and bridges as he saw them from the water.