De Glehn is perhaps most famous for his association with John Singer Sargent. Born in Sydenham, England in 1870, he received his training in the Royal College of Art in South Kensington and later at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studied under Gustave Moreau and Elie Delaunay. De Glehn met Sargent in 1895 through Edwin Austin Abby during his first visit to America when Sargent was working on murals in the Boston Public Library. After further work in Europe, de Glehn returned to the US in 1903 and married Jane Emmet, a member of a Boston family of painters and cousin to the novelist Henry James. Shortly afterwards the newly wed couple returned to Europe with Sargent where they embarked on many years of travel throughout Spain, Switzerland and Italy. Sargent would become renowned in the years to come. There was always a circle of other painters and artists around them, with de Glehn and Sargent always at the center, usually painting side by side from location to location, often using Mrs. De Glehn or Sargent’s sisters as models. These years were very productive and successful for de Glehn who built an impressive body of work, and always in the company of painters of the caliber of Sargent whose influence and experience were ever-present.
Painted with generous thickness, de Glehn's deft use of color and his love of sunlight and shadow is amply evident in The Bathers. A close friend of John Singer Sargent, de Glehn is ranked among the best British impressionist painters of the 20th century.