Robert Henri painted this formal full-length portrait of Edith L. Reynolds (1883–1964) at her home in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in February 1908 after he finished the pendant portraits of her neighbors Mr. George Cotton Smith and Mrs. George Cotton Smith. Reynolds would later study under Henri at the Henri School of Art in New York. She became known in her hometown for her landscapes of the Wilkes-Barre area and was an art collector active in cultural affairs in her community.

Typical of Henri's style during this period, the artist conveyed Reynolds’s individuality by not idealizing her features. Because of its stark composition and monochromatic quality, the Reynolds portrait is closely related to the full-lengths that Henri had painted earlier in the decade, such as Lady in Black (1904, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York).