In the 1780s, after the conversation piece had fallen out of fashion in England, Gainsborough planned two examples for George III showing royal parks – The Mall (1783; Frick Collection) and the The Richmond Water-Walk (which did not proceed beyond a small group of drawings).

For these works Gainsborough returned to the study of Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), an artist who had inspired so many English conversation pieces of the 1730s. Gainsborough’s handling is looser than these earlier artists and his treatment more mysterious and poetic. William Hazlitt wrote of The Mall, ‘it is all motion, and in a flutter like a lady’s fan. Watteau is not half so airy’.