The Foundling Hospital (L’Hôpital des Enfants-Trouvés) in Paris was established by royal edict in 1670 during the reign of Louis XIV. The Paris Hospital differed in many respects from its London counterpart. It had a different admission system whereby mothers were not required to bring their children to the Hospital but could abandon them in a public place or, as illustrated in this picture, leave them at the Hospital gate.

Henry Nelson O’Neil was born in St Peterbsurg, Russia, in 1817. As a young man in the 1840s he was a member of the Clique, a group of anti-Establishment artists opposed to the orthodoxy of the Royal Academy. He reached the peak of his success in the 1850s, the period when he painted this picture. This painting was purchased by the Thomas Coram Foundation in 1987.