The model for the portrait was the artist’s wife, the poet Helen Parry Eden. When asked about the work, the artist commented: 'There's no story connected with the picture… Everyone must make their own. My only idea was to make a modern picture. We were in rooms at the time it was painted, househunting, and Griselda is a portrait of my wife. She is supposed to be stopping at an inn, where she is opening a map to see the best route after having lunched'. Denis Eden was born in Liverpool and studied at the St John’s Wood Art School, and then the Royal Academy. He achieved fame as one of a group of artists commissioned to paint the mural panels illustrating scenes from English History in the Palace of Westminster, 1908–1910.