Madeline Yale (1847-1918) grew up in Newport, New York, the daughter of the inventor of the Yale lock. She married Henry Winn in 1861, and the couple had two children. After their divorce, she changed the spelling of her surname to “Wynne” and began to study art.  She purchased the Old Manse in the center of Deerfield, Massachusetts, (now used as Deerfield Academy’s headmaster’s house) in 1885. Madeline lived there with her companion, Annie Cabot Putnam, and her mother. In Deerfield, she took up metalworking, which gave her a prominent reputation in the Arts and Crafts Movement (1875-1920). Until her death, Madeline spent her summers in Deerfield and her winters in Chicago, Illinois. This painting is one of the few surviving examples of her brushwork, although she painted extensively before 1885. In it, she imagines herself returning as a ghost to the home she renovated and loved.