Flood Tide

Mary Butler was born and raised in Pennsylvania and became best known for depictions of mountains and the sea. She trained in art at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art); then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under the instruction of William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri; and later at Center Bridge, New Hope, Pennsylvania with Edward Redfield. She then traveled to Paris where she studied at the Academie Colarossi.

Cable wintered in Philadelphia but summered in Maine, where she may have painted Flood Tide. Throughout her career she promoted the arts in Philadelphia, where she first exhibited in 1894.