Jeffrey Smart and the artist Margaret Olley became close friends in the last twenty years of Smart’s life. Sharing many friends in common, including fellow Australian artists Jean Bellette, Justin O’Brien and Russell Drysdale, Smart and Olley had a great passion for art and music. They also shared a dry sense of humour. Olley responded to this painting with her characteristic wit: ‘I am glad Jeffrey put me in the Louvre for I am much more at home in the Louvre than on one of [his] freeways.’
