Gale travelled widely, to Syria, Algeria and most notably the Holy Land in 1867 where he recorded the customs and costumes of the local inhabitants. This picture, no doubt intended to amuse, sees him under the grey skies of an English summer, the bather teasingly out of sight. In his early days he painted in the Pre-Raphaelite manner. His 1857 exhibit, The Confidante, is now in Tate Britain.