Monday morning 1912 launched Vida Lahey's career when it was exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Queensland Art Society, Brisbane, in 1912.

The painting shows two women doing the weekly wash in copper sinks with bars of soap - once a common sight in Australian households. It is a rare subject in Australian art; women's lives were generally depicted in a more genteel fashion and the acknowledgment of such hard labour was avoided.

Esme, a younger sister of the artist, was the model for the woman at the washtub. She is shown with Flora Campbell, a family friend, doing the washing at the Lahey family home, Greylands, in Indooroopilly, Brisbane.

Monday morning follows the tradition established at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, Melbourne, where students were encouraged to produce a large narrative painting to compete for the triennial travelling art scholarship.

Monday morning is Lahey's only surviving large-scale work of the period.