The painter and printmaker Arthur Ditchfield studied at Leigh's School of Art in London and later at the Royal Academy Schools. He exhibited between 1864 and 1886 at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, the Society of British Artists, the New Watercolour Society, the Royal Institute and elsewhere. He specialised in topographical views, making etchings of English towns, and travelling to France, Spain, Italy, Egypt and North Africa. An Old Wall and Buildings, Algiers was painted during a tour of Spain, Algeria and Cairo which Ditchfield made in 1872-74. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy (no.438) in 1874.