The only woman painter of note to pursue a career in America's antebellum period, Spencer used a highly controlled technique to achieve exacting representations of domesticity. She was unique among her colleagues in her ability to offer an insider's view of the woman's sphere and gifted at portraying precise details of family life. Her work found steady patronage in Cincinnati and New York, where she moved in 1849.

Spencer used her husband as a model (as she often did) for this meticulously composed parody of the Cincinnati tradition of gentlemen going to market. The painting is carefully made up of angular movements and suggestive facial expressions. As is typical of her best efforts, the iconography is rich without being highly charged, descriptive rather than politically motivated. She exhibited the work with its companion, Young Wife: First Stew (unlocated), at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1856 to mixed reviews from critics accustomed to her pleasing family scenes and grinning housewives. Spencer revealed herself in the present work to be a more talented and insightful artist than had been previously recognized. As her career evolved, Spencer often lampooned women at their daily chores, but she never again subjected a man to her satiric vision.