In 1896, the year this painting was completed, Russell met and married Nancy Cooper, a seventeen-year-old girl who worked at a house in Cascade, Montana, where the artist often wintered. Soon the young couple had settled on a place of their own, with Russell’s collection of Indian artifacts the primary décor. Some photographs taken about this time show Nancy Russell dressed in Indian garb, lying in front of a willow backrest and painted buffalo robe in a manner very similar to the young Indian woman in this painting. Not long after their marriage, the Russells were visted by William Bleasdell Cameron, the young editor of a new magazine titled Western Field and Stream. Russell signed an agreement to furnish a number of works for the magazine.

A variant of the painting shown here was used to illustrate a fictional article by Cameron, “Keeoma’s Wooing,” which appeared in the magazine in July 1897. The article describes Keeoma, an “indolent and sentimental” maiden who rests in her father’s lodge, gazing dreamily into the smoke of a small fire. In the story and painting, she lazily fans herself with an eagle’s wing and tests an old tribal legend by attempting to discern the features of her future husband within the “delicate wreaths” of smoke curling up from the coals. There is an oriental exoticism in this scene, as the Indian woman languidly assumes the pose of an odalisque. Although the woman is dressed in typical Blackfoot fashion, Russell mistakenly shows her wearing a hoop necklace—something that was only worn by the men of the tribe.