This painting is a personal lament by Sir William Allan for the loss of his friend and supporter Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), cast in the style of a scene of everyday life or genre painting. The 'orphan' is Scott's late daughter Anne (1803-33) and the scene is the dining room of Scott's home, Abbotsford. Allan knew the house well as he had been invited by Scott's son-in-law and biographer, J.G. Lockhart (1794-1854), to record the interiors shortly before the writer's death in 1832. The room is filled with works of art that suggest the range of his interests, but it is his massive carved oak chair that evokes most powerfully the absent monumental figure of Scott.

It was in part thanks to Scott that Allan became established as one of the most successful artists of his generation. It was Scott, along with David Wilkie in 1817, who encouraged Allan to draw on episodes from Scottish history, rich in romance and drama, in an effort to revive the tradition of historical painting. Scott also appointed Allan as the first illustrator of the Waverley novels in 1820. In sharing the vision of Scott, Allan ensured that Scottish art and literature ran in parallel in the mid-nineteenth century, and his rise to success followed that of his mentor. Allan also found success as a painter of exotic subjects inspired by his travels abroad to Russia, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, Spain and Morocco. He was appointed Master of the Trustees Academy in Edinburgh (1826), Associate and Member of the Royal Academy (1825, 1834), and President of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1838. In 1841 he succeeded Wilkie as Queen’s Limner for Scotland, and in 1842 he was knighted.