Mildred Burrage studied art in Giverny, France before World War I. On a trip to Versailles she made sketches of her fellow art students and people in the crowd to accompany her letter home to family in Kennebunkport dated July 16-20, 1909. Burrage's attention to color, architectural details, and clothing developed in France became lifelong themes, shown by this excerpt:

"Think of fountains with rainbows in the sunlight and blue sky and fresh green of all the trees and the white dresses of the women and behind it all that enormous pink and grey palace. The crowd had such fun…there were Breton women in their white caps and colored aprons and there were soldiers and little boys and old gentlemen, & nice old peasant ladies with white caps being shown the sights by their sons."