This painting of two girls hanging chinese lanterns in the early dusk amongst lily flowers and roses was inspired by a boat trip sargent took on the thames at pangbourne seargent went on to complete his studies for the painting outside at dusk every night to get the light just right as the summer ended he has to replace the flowers with artificial ones the two girls were polly and dorothy dolly barnard the daughters of his friend the illustrator frederick barnard the title comes from the so