Grand mère' was painted by Hilda Rix Nicholas in Étaples, Northern France. Executed in the open air, the artwork depicts an elderly peasant woman in a blossoming garden. Rix Nicholas sets the subject of the painting firmly in the frontal plane of a luminously colourful background, an influence of post-impressionist Paris. Short brushstrokes of thickly applied paint animate the pictorial surface and showcase the artist's draughtsmanship.
Rix Nicholas's works were acquired by the French government, exhibited in the Salon and the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français, and she was elected an Associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.