Since he travelled to Granada in 1898, where he was impressed by the beauty of the Islamic gardens in Andalusia, he started painting the gardens he came across on his journeys around Spain: Sitges, Valencia, Xativa, Mallorca, or Aranjuez, together comprising a compendium of gardens of Spain.

In his gardens he blends the basic elements of this Nasrid art that influenced him so strongly: the architecture, the water, and the plants, although he is always interested in the presence of man as an agent of the transformation of the physical environment. Still, he does not include the human figure as a complement. He simply does away with his presence, focusing instead on the solitude of the vegetation and using light to achieve symbolic and theatrical effects.

This work is a view painted in the gardens of Monforte in Valencia, which are near the gardens of El Real, by the banks of the river Turia. They have a classicist style, even though they were designed in the Romantic period, in the 1850s, by Juan Bautista Romero, the Marques of San Juan.

The balanced and secluded feel of this garden, enhanced with sculptures and vases made in Carrara marble, was very pleasing to the artist, who portrayed it on several occasions, in this particular instance lit from the top. In the catalogue raisonné of the artist, Father Laplana recorded the canvases that Rusiñol did of the Monforte mansion (1) and its gardens (5) since he first became acquainted with the estate in 1911. The one we are currently discussing was the fourth painting made in this setting, possibly in 1917.

The spot represented in the painting was known as the Glorieta de los Arcos, due to the arches that had been cut in the thick foliage of the cypress trees, which lent the space its marked classicist character. The chromatic serenity of the hedge wall is animated with the pink and mauve hues of the steps and the path between the hedges, and the golden reflection of the setting sun on the water of the pond and the trees in the background.