Clara Mahl studied with Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League, and then later at the National Academy of Design. Mahl's image of domestic workers shows the drudgery of the working class.

Two workers scrub the floor against the background of a dinner party, while a third women, presumably the lady of the house, looks on haughtily. The women in the foreground are small, trapped low in the composition by the horizontal line of the black wall behind them.