'The Flower Girl' and 'The Watercress Girl' are among the most virtuosic of Zoffany’s artistic accomplishments, both visually and technically, and are unique in his oeuvre in terms of their chosen genre. Painted after his return from Italy to England in 1779, they represent Zoffany at the height of his powers, presenting at close quarters poignant images of two teenage girls, plying their precarious trade on the streets of London. The images form part of a tradition of what came to be known as the ‘fancy picture’, a hybrid art-form which gained popularity in Britain during the eighteenth-century, although its roots were embedded in European traditions involving the depiction in the form of vignettes of a range of colourful characters, from ragged urchins, to alluring young street vendors, courtesans, musicians, gypsies, and even wizened old beggars.