In the early 20th century, this painting was in the possession of the art historian Henry Thode, who had been appointed director of the Frankfurt Städelsches Kunstinstitut in 1889. Thode wrote the first and still valid catalogue raisonné of Hans Thoma in 1909, in which our painting is listed and dated 1883. It was thus painted in Frankfurt, where Thoma, newly married to the flower painter Cella Berteneder, had moved five years earlier and lived in the central Westend. Thoma describes the Frankfurt years as particularly happy, although at that time he still had to fight hard for recognition of his painting.