The majority of American artists who adopted impressionism in the last decades of the nineteenth century had either studied formally in Paris, or Barbizon, or Giverny, or they had spent sufficient time there to absorb the movement's aesthetic principles. Yet in implementing those tenets, the Americans were inclined to be less doctrinaire in the application of impressionist light and color theory and characteristic brush technique. Consequently, some critics and art historians, the notable E. P. Richardson for example, find the American development generally more decorative than that of the French innovators (a natural evolution reflecting the tendency of second-generation practitioners to refine, but at the same time reduce, the boldness and experimental vigor of the original style to an ornamental idiom).

Art historians James Thomas Flexner and Donelson F. Hoopes separately have suggested that Frederick Childe Hassam, of all the American impressionists who studied in France, is probably closest in style and spirit to his sources. In visual result as well as title, the vibrant oil French Tea Garden aptly demonstrates the artist's more European manner and compares favorably with similar domestic outdoor scenes by Monet. (In fact, Hassam has been called the "American Monet.") With typical impressionist nonchalance, a seated young woman appears to be sewing the hem of an indeterminable cloth. Before her, a small table is spread with teacups, utensils, and attendant paraphernalia. The scene is bathed in sunlight; colors dance in the shadows of the white table covering and the woman's dress. Behind, a veritable tapestry of pigment suggests lush greenery and flowering things, and just a whisper of breeze that makes it all shimmer. Despite its overt calm, the image is blithe and zestful. It was painted on the artist's third and final visit to Europe during the summer of 1910.

Hassam was born in Dorcester, Massachusetts, in 1859. He left high school to apprentice as an engraver and illustrator in Boston, at the same time taking lessons at the Boston Art Club under I. M. Gaugengigl. Later he also studied at the Lowell Institute. His illustrations were published in Scribner's and Harper's magazines and in several books. In 1883 he made his first extended tour of Europe. From 1886 to '89 he was again in Paris. He studied briefly at the Académie Julian with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre, but his chief influence at that time came from the impressionists. By 1887 his works had begun to show impressionist effects.

After returning to the United States in 1889 Hassam settled in New York. His principal circle of artist friends were others with impressionist tendencies, including those with whom he formally associated in 1889 as the group called The Ten American Painters, which exhibited annually for twenty years thereafter at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in New York. Hassam also presented his work regularly, until his death in 1935, at shows of the Carnegie International, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the National Academy of Design. He was elected an associate of the Academy in 1902 and elevated to full academician in 1906. He was also a member of the National Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In his long career he won thirty-five noteworthy prizes and awards, not the least of which was an invitation to participate in the 1913 New York Armory Show.