Wu Bingquan, whose style name was Jingke, was a painter and seal engraver from Haiyan in Zhejiang province. He was the fourth son of the landscape painter and collector Wu Xiu (1764–1827) and was active during the Daoguang era (1821–1850). His special field was painting from nature (xiesheng).
The painting is in the tradition of New Year pictures and probably has been used as such. This would also explain its poor state of preservation. Works such as this expressive painting have only rarely survived. They were hung up for a limited time as auspicious New Year paintings and were not usually kept.