Percy Moran was the son of marine painter Edward Moran and nephew of the prominent landscape artist Thomas Moran. After studying art formally in Paris, New York, and Philadelphia, Percy opened his own studio in New York. His watercolors and illustrations for books and magazines were popular, and his scenes of children and rural life in colonial America were especially marketable. These images were widely reproduced as photogravures, mezzotints, and colored etchings.