After finishing his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1861, Knight sailed to France to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, only to return to America in 1863 to fight in the Civil War. He remained there until 1871, at which point he once again travelled to France, and this time settled there permanently.

Knight formed friendships with Renoir, Sisley, and Wordsworth, and their work, in particular the attention to the changing effects of light, and the concentration on everyday subjects began to influence him. Further inspiration was to come from Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, who encouraged Knight to incorporate a detailed style of realism in his work, and to paint the scenes of peasant life that were to forge his reputation.

Although often compared to Millet, Knight was much more upbeat and idealised in his depictions of rural life, painting attractive women happily performing their day’s chores, surrounded by beautiful countryside. In 1896, he purchased a house in Rolleboise, just outside Paris, and it is the work he made there, most of it sited in his stunning garden overlooking the Seine, that has become his most sought-after.