Following an extensive tour of Northern Italy, Germany, Holland and Belgium, Draper returned to London in 1891, rented a studio in Chelsea and began work on The Spirit of the Fountain. The subject matter is taken from Book II, Canto XII of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene in which the young knight, Sir Guyon and his companion, a pilgrim, rest beneath the Bower of Bliss, awakening the nymph who resides there and who ensnares the travellers with her beauty.

Draper's fascination with the alluring and mystical subject of seductive mermaids and nymphs can also be found in works by his contemporary John William Waterhouse, with whom Draper was certainly in close contact by 1892. The sensual and dreamlike subject matter is further implied not only in Draper’s loosely-applied paint, but also in the frieze of frolicking bacchantes in the fountain. Red roses, the flowers of love, grow at the nymphs feet, and a garland of ivy (a symbol of Bacchus) adorns her auburn hair.

The painting's first owner, John Hall, was one of Draper’s most loyal patrons, owning not only this work but also Lamia(1909, private collection) and Halcyone (1915, private collection). In 1918 he commissioned portraits of himself and his wife by the artist.