The painting entered the Istituto Bancario Italiano (IBI) Collection from the antique market, and can be identified as the canvas shown in 1870 at the 29th Turin Esposizione della Società per le Belle Arti. It is one of the first works executed by the painter after he had just finished studying at the Brera Academy and was taking part in the exhibitions held in Genoa, Turin and Milan, where he showed works inspired by the places and rural life in the Milanese and Brianza countryside. In this painting in the Collection, the young Gignous depicts the lush greenery near an irrigation canal where the local women did their washing. Beyond the path running alongside the canal the first houses on the outskirts of the city rise up: a sign of the urbanisation process that was gradually spreading to areas previously destined mainly for agriculture. It was precisely to the countryside just outside the city that the painter used to go with his friends Achille Tominetti and Luigi Rossi to paint from life. These years of intense activity produced works like this Environs of Milan and also Rustic Courtyard in the Vicinity of Milan (Milan, Museo di Milano), which won a prize at the annual Brera exhibition in 1870. In these canvases, Gignous’s landscape painting is still influenced by the late Romantic academic style, but his observation of life is already painstaking and sensitive: using a detailed technique he focuses on the foliage of the trees and the hedges, skilfully varying the tonalities of green to depict the light from the clear sky reflecting on the vegetation and the roofs of the houses. In the following years, his constant practice of painting en plein air enabled him to achieve freer handling by embracing and exploring the developments of Lombard Naturalism.