This, Millais's first Pre-Raphaelite painting, was painted during 1848 when he was 19 years old. The subject is taken from Keats's poem Isabella, or The Pot of Basil. The painting is also sometimes simply known as Isabella. When exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1849, the following quotation from the poem was included in the catalogue:

Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
They could not sit at meals but feel how well
It soothed each to be the other by.
These brethren having found by many signs
What love Lorenzo for their sister had,
And how she lov'd him too, each unconfines
His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad
That he, the servant of their trade designs
Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad
When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees
To some high noble and his olive trees.

Keats's source for this poem was a tale by the 14th century Italian author, Boccaccio.