During the 1890s, John Henry Twachtman purchased a seventeen-acre farm near Greenwich, Connecticut. He set up his studio, and began to explore the land around the new farm, searching for new subject matter. The white footbridge depicted here spanned Horseneck Brook, which ran through his property. Compression of pictorial space and the use of a strong diagonal reveal Twachtman's debt to, and admiration of, Japanese aesthetics. The key elements of the composition (i.e., the brook, the bridge, and branches of the foreground tree) all converge and focus the viewpoint, while touches of emerald evergreens frame the white bridge for emphasis. The gilded frame is original to the picture and is widely believed to be a design by the celebrated architect, Stanford White (1853-1906), whose firm, McKim, Mead & White designed the original building of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.