Carle Vanloo studied under his brother, Jean-Baptiste Vanloo. The paintings were acquired for the Royal Palace and are listed as Lake Mälaren and The Sea in the 1745-1747 inventory. But they had been shown at the Paris Salon already in 1740, there called A RIver and A Naiad. Other names given to copies of the works are Le Rhône and Le Saône. Possibly the inspiration for the figures came from Rubens’ Maria de’ Medici cycle in the Louvre.